The Terminator: Reboot
by IWantColouredRain
Summary: A version of the 1984 movie with a Sarah closer to the badass, takes no prisoners woman she was in Judgement Day and Genisys (though not quite as hardened yet).
1. Kyle's Arrival

**Disclaimer: I don't own Terminator. This is a version of the original movie, in which Sarah is, although not quite the badass warrior she will one day, still tougher than she was for most of the first film. BTW: feel free to picture Linda Hamilton & Michael Biehn if you like, but I first saw Terminator Genisys, and forever picture Sarah and Kyle as Emilia Clarke and Jai Courtenay. **

**Chapter One**

**Kyle's Arrival**

_**Los Angeles City: May 12**__**th**__**, 1984**_

The night was calm and damp from the recently ended rain shower, the alleyway silent save for an old homeless man mumbling drunkenly to himself.

Suddenly, a brilliant blue glare lit up the wet brickwork of the buildings. A large shockwave sent trash hurling into the air. Painted over windows shattered, making rats scurry away in fright, blinded by the bright light.

The blue light condensed itself into a ball, several feet in the air, and from that ball a man fell, smacking hard into the pavement. He groaned in pain for a moment before his senses returned and he scrambled up into a defensive position, twisting his neck to take in his surroundings.

He was in his early-to-mid twenties, but had a hardened air about him that aged him dramatically. His hair was blonde, but dirty from lack of washing. His eyes were grey-blue and filled with wariness as he studied his surroundings. It was obvious that he was a soldier from both his manner and the many scars that littered his malnourished and muscular body. He was also completely naked.

Kyle studied his surroundings for a moment in search of any threats before he began to jog away, ignoring the pain still lingering from the machine. He couldn't decide if it was the worst pain he'd ever been through or not, but it definitely ranked up there at least, making him limp slightly. _"Disconnect, Reese," _he remembered John telling him a dozen times. _"That's what my mother always said to do with pain. Just disconnect."_

John's mother. The reason he was here in the first place. He had to find her. He had to save her.

Just as he was reaching the far end of the alley, a hoarse voice drew his attention.

"Hey buddy," a man, seated in a doorway, drawled. From the sound of his voice, Reese guessed he was drunk. Strange to think that he was in a time where alcohol was for amusement or comfort, not for dulling pain before a medical procedure. "Did you just see a bright light?"

Reese stared at the man for a moment, then glanced down at his naked body before abruptly lunging at the man. He easily subdued the protesting man and took his pants.

Kyle was just fastening the jeans when he heard a siren and a black-and-white car (a police car, John's voice reminded him helpfully. The current law enforcement.) pulled up. The doors flew open and a cop leaped out.

"Hold it, right there!" The officer yelled as Reese hitched his pants and bolted like a shot. He didn't know what would happen if they caught him, but one way or another he would be delayed. And his mission was too important to risk wasting even a second.

The cop drew his gun and raced into the alley after him.

He entered the connecting alley and paused in confusion. Kyle was nowhere in sight. A second later, the soldier came leaping into view. Before the cop could react, Reese grabbed the handgun and aimed it steadily at the officer, who stayed still.

"What date is it?" Reese demanded, not letting the gun waver and keeping his finger on the trigger. He didn't want to shoot any humans if he could avoid it, but he would if necessary. The important thing was to fulfil his mission. No matter what.

"May 12th," the cop responded, his bemusement at the question obvious.

"What year?" Kyle growled. The cop opened his mouth to reply, but the sound of more sirens cut him off. Kyle glanced towards the sound and made a run for it.

He dashed through the maze of alleys and climbed a fire-escape, smashing a window to enter a large, open room filled with clothes on hangers and signs. A shop, by the looks of it. The first one he'd ever seen that wasn't destroyed and looted.

He didn't have time to look around, though, as he heard the cop speaking to another one, warning him that Kyle had taken the gun.

He crept through the racks, keeping low to avoid being seen, grabbing clothes and pulling them on as he went.

He made his way up an elevator and out the window, climbing back down the fire-escape again. He ended up beside the police car, and quickly opened the door, silently amazed at the lax security the people of this time seemed to have. Still, it helped him, so he pushed the thoughts away as he stole a shotgun and hid it under his coat before closing the door again. Then he quickly exited the alleyway into a street.

Although it was late at night, and the sky was black, the street was as bright as midday from the streetlamps that lit it at regular intervals. Kyle looked around, feeling a jolt of uncertainty for a moment, before he caught sight of a phone booth. Remembering John telling him about how people Pre-Judgement Day had their addresses listed in the phone book, which had copies in each of those booths, Kyle hastened over to it, trying not to draw attention from the few people scattered around the area.

He pulled the door of the booth shut behind him and lifted up the book, opening it and flipping through the pages. He only had a rudimentary ability to read, but it was enough. He found the 'C's, and looked through them until he found the one he was looking for 'Connor, Sarah J. 308 Westburne Heights Apartments, Mulberry Street, LA.' Tearing out the page, he turned and left.

* * *

_**Énergie Fitness Club, LA: Friday, May 13th, 1984 **_

Nineteen-year-old Sarah Jeanette Connor pulled into the parking lot of her fitness club. Finding a free space, she kicked the break of her beloved motorbike and slung her leg off.

She darted over to the door, fixing her plait, that had gotten mussed from her helmet, as she did so. The receptionist, a friendly young woman named Lisa, grinned at her as Sarah paused at the desk to scribble her name on the register.

"Heya, Sarah," Lisa greeted her cheerfully. "How's it going?"

"Busily," Sarah retorted. "Matt's finally proposed to Ginger, and she's gone crazy. The apartment's covered in wedding mags, and she's busy booking taste testings, and dress fittings, and all. As maid of honour, I'm apparently obliged to help her with all of it, though I'm not complaining about getting free cake, I must admit." She winked at Lisa, who chuckled cheerfully.

"Well, you're here so much you won't have to worry about not fitting into your dress, at least," Lisa grinned. "Is term almost over then?"

Sarah nodded. "Almost. Finishing up in two weeks, thank god. The class time is digging into my free time. What with the championships coming up, I need to practice."

"Oh, please," Lisa scoffed. "You're the best shooter in California. You won by miles last year, and you placed the under-eighteens twice, as well as winning when you were seventeen. You make military war vets feel like failures. I have no doubts that this will be the third year in a row that you bring home the gold."

Sarah grinned proudly at that. Her mother had died when Sarah was a baby, and her Army father had been lost on how to raise a daughter. He'd solved his dilemma by raising her like she was a boy. Instead of playing with tea sets and dolls, Sarah had learned things like how to care for and fire different types of guns, multiple self-defence styles, hunting and fishing. The girliest things she'd done was ballet and gymnastics, which her grandmother had pressed her into doing. Admittedly, Sarah had enjoyed them just as much. She also had an interest in art and music, (again, nurtured by her grandmother who'd been desperate to make Sarah more 'ladylike') but those were more gender-neutral than anything else.

Not that Sarah had ever minded how her dad had treated her, despite Nan's despair. She'd always enjoyed the various activities they'd done together, and she was capable of taking down any man. Now that her father was gone, continuing those activities made her feel closer to him.

"We'll see," she hummed. "Anyway, I'm gonna head up to the gym. I want to do at least two hours, and I've to go to the grocer's and take a catnap before work at eight. I'm working 'til closing."

"That sucks," Lisa sympathized. "Better head on up then. See ya."

"See ya," Sarah waved casually over her shoulder as she headed for the locker room. After changing into a dark green tank top and black leggings, she grabbed her Walkman and headphones and headed to the main gym, where she climbed onto a tread mill. Turning on Elton John, she lost herself in the music and burn of the exercise.

She changed machines several times, going from the tread mill to the cross trainer to the spin bike. She was on the rowing machine, eyes closed, when someone abruptly pulled her headphones off, making Sarah's eyes snap open in outrage.

"Hey!" she snapped. Ginger's face came into focus, the other woman's own headphones dangling around her neck and a grin on her face as she cocked her hip.

"You know it's four-thirty, right?"

"Four-thirty?" Sarah repeated, eyes widening. She quickly checked her watch, swearing when she confirmed it. "Damnit! I need to shower and get to the shop. I'll have to skip that nap I was gonna take."

Ginger shrugged. "C'est la vie," she declared philosophically as Sarah clambered off the machine and began to do a few quick stretches to cool down. "If you want to skip showering here and just head home, I can pop to Walmart. You can catch a few z's, then shower after. You should be good."

"Thanks kiddo," Sarah breathed. "That's be great. I'm on 'til six-thirty tonight."

"Yuck," Ginger made a face as they began heading back to the lockers. "You should get a job with normal, non-nocturnal hours. You know, like me with my yoga classes."

"No, that wouldn't work for me," Sarah shook her head. "If I worked days, I wouldn't be able to do as much during them. I'd have to give up either volunteering at the YMCA, reduce my time at the range, or else school. And giving up school isn't an option. Not if I want to get a non-minimum wage job that doesn't involve being a secretary." She stopped in front of her locker and quickly opened it to pull out her bag.

"You'd be a terrible secretary," Ginger stated. "Oh well. I suppose you'll just have to deal. Just don't work yourself to death, 'kay honey?"

"I won't," Sarah promised. She leaned in and pecked her friend's cheek as she slung the bag over her shoulder. "See you at home kiddo," she said, before heading for the door. Ginger started in the other direction, no doubt going to get her fiancé from the weights room.

"See ya," Ginger called back, just before the door closed.

* * *

_**Westburne Heights Apartments, Mulberry Street, LA: May 13**__**th**__**, 1984**_

It had taken Kyle the best part of both the night and the day to track down the building where Sarah Connor lived, but he'd done it eventually. Currently, he was huddled in his stolen car. He'd stolen a 'burger and chips' from a man selling food nearby, and was currently savouring it. It had a range of things on it, and Kyle wasn't really sure what. It was delicious though. Definitely the best meal he had ever tasted.

Finishing off the last of his meal, he licked his fingers and took a sip of water from his bottle, which was resting beside the bag filled with guns and ammo that he'd taken from a weapons store the night before. Then he tapped his fingers on the wheel, once again debating whether or not he should try and track Sarah down. He'd been hovering outside her building for three hours now, but he hadn't seen any sign of her yet. But no, leaving was a bad idea.

He knew that she was a bartender (whatever that was) at a nightclub, and studying 'Classical Studies' in college at this time, but that was it. He didn't know the name of where she worked or studied, nor did he know her schedule. His best bet was to remain watching her building until she arrived home. At least he knew what she looked like.

He still had far more information about Sarah Connor than the Terminator did, which was a relief. He'd already heard on the radio about a woman called Sarah Connor being murdered in her home that morning, and nearly panicked until they'd gone on to add that she was a thirty-eight-year-old mother of two. He felt bad that he couldn't protect the innocents from being killed, but in the long run, they didn't matter. Only Sarah _Jeanette_ Connor did.

A red motorbike came speeding into the parking lot, and Kyle hastily crouched down, angling himself to be able to see without being seen. His heartbeat sped up as he took in the young woman swinging her leg off of the bike.

He'd looked at the photo that John had given him a million times, memorizing every detail, and he'd known she was beautiful. John had once told him that the picture didn't do her justice, and now that he'd seen her in person, Kyle wholly agreed.

Sarah had long, dark brunette hair, currently pulled back into a long braid to keep it out of the way. She moved with a graceful elegance, and her toned form spoke of a great deal of time spent exercising, unlike many of the people that Kyle had seen since his arrival in 1984 the night previous. Her skin was tanned, and she had a distracted expression on her lovely face. She was dressed in a black leather jacket with blue jeans and a dark purple shirt that emphasized her healthy figure. A pair of headphones, plugged into a small box that was hooked onto her belt, covered her ears.

Kyle guessed that it was one of those 'Walkmans' he'd heard about. John had said that his mother loved music and art. Kyle only knew a tiny bit about both of those things, but John had described as seeing and hearing life. He understood why someone would enjoy something like that.

She bobbed her head to whatever she was listening to as she slung her bag over her shoulder and headed for the entrance to the building.

She didn't even glance at him, and Kyle couldn't decide if he was disappointed or relieved at that fact.


	2. Attack at TechNoir

**Disclaimer: I don't own Terminator.**

**Chapter Two**

**Attack at TechNoir**

_**May 13th, Sarah and Ginger's Apartment**_

Sarah hummed softly to herself as she dried her wet hair. Unlike most women nowadays, she hadn't bothered with a perm. It was a ridiculous waste of money, in her opinion. And no doubt the fashion would pass quickly enough. All fashions did. Sarah would rather save her money or spend it on things that she genuinely needed than waste it on a hairstyle. She knew how do to her make-up and such, but fashion had never been a priority for her. She was, above all, practical.

Ginger, dressed in a short, silky purple dressing gown with her headphones on as per usual, bumped into her, and they muttered quick apologies to each other. Hair dried, Sarah unplugged the hairdryer and started brushing her hair into a simple chignon, before putting on a small amount of make-up.

Ginger grinned and wrapped an arm around her when she finished. "Better than mortal man deserves!" the enthusiastic young woman declared.

Sarah chuckled and squeezed her. In Sarah's opinion, she wasn't particularly beautiful, but she garnered her fair share of looks and date requests. Currently she was dressed according to the TechNoir dress code for employees in a pair of low-slung black skinny jeans with a silver belt, low-heeled black pumps, a navy top that clung to her, showing off her athletically-toned body, and she would finish the outfit off with her well-worn black leather jacket. A pair of silver hoops pierced her ears, matching the silver bracelet that had once been her mother's on her wrist.

"Have you seen Pugsley?" she asked as they headed into the living room area of their shared apartment and she noticed the empty tank. Ginger shook her head, adjusting an earring.

"No, sorry. Did you check the messages?"

"No, I thought that you did," Sarah answered, glancing under the couch in search of her pet iguana.

Ginger didn't reply, instead pressing the button on the answering machine to listen to the messages waiting for them.

"Hey Ginger, Amy here," the first one started. "I need you to cover my class on Thursday, please? Mike's parents are coming for a visit, and they're taking the two of us out for dinner. Thanks, I promise that I'll make it up to you."

"Hi, Sarah, Leo from the YMCA," the second played a moment later, just as Sarah found Pugsley. "Just calling to remind you that the under-tens kickboxing tournament is tomorrow and you agreed to chaperone. Remember that you need to be here at twelve, because the tournament begins at two and we need to set up. Also,don't forget that you agreed to buy some crisps on the way. Alright, see you then. Thanks again."

"Kickboxing," Ginger grimaced. "I dunno how you can enjoy spending so much time doing different types of fighting. This violent streak of yours doesn't say good things, hun.."

Sarah smirked at her friend as she closed Pugsley's tank firmly. "Ah, but isn't it better that I take it out on punching bags and idiots than people I like such as yourself and Matt?"

"Fair enough," Ginger laughed. "Have a good night at work."

"Enjoy your evening with Matt," Sarah replied, slinging her bag over her shoulder and heading out the door. She made her way to the parking lot and got on her bike, pausing to look around with a slight frown.

She felt as if someone was watching her, but she couldn't see anybody. Shaking her head, she dismissed the feeling and kicked her bike into gear.

She didn't notice the car that peeled out of its' space a moment after her, tailing her closely.

* * *

Kyle followed her discreetly. He was still debating how to approach her, and he'd come to the conclusion that, despite the risk, he needed to wait until the Terminator approached her. He needed to know what his enemy looked like, and that was the only way.

Sarah abruptly pulled over, and he copied her. Thankfully, she didn't notice him, distracted by crouching down to check her front tyre, which seemed to have gotten a flat. He carefully climbed out and ducked behind a nearby corner, sticking his head out slightly to watch as Sarah grimaced, straightening and kicking the bike irritably.

"Stupid thing," she grumbled, before adjusting her bag and securing the motorbike. Then she began walking, Kyle still trailing after her.

Several times she glanced over her shoulder with a wary frown, and Kyle did his best to appear to simply be going in the same direction as her. She quickened her step, eventually ducking into a building with a glowing red sign above the doorway.

Kyle walked past, then doubled back and slipped inside.

"Four dollars for entrance," a woman with spiky blonde hair drawled at him, looking bored.

Kyle grimaced and pulled out the money he'd taken from the gun shop he'd robbed. He pulled out a bill, uncertain and indifferent to whether or not it was enough, passed it to her, and hurried past before she could delay him further.

Inside was a large, open room with smoky air. There was a large space filled with people dancing, music booming out loudly. Around the sides of the room were several small tables and chairs, and a long bar was at the far side. Sarah was behind it, no longer wearing her jacket and handing a glass of something to a man.

Kyle found a suitable spot to keep a discreet watch on her and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms and feeling his stolen shotgun pressed against his chest.

The Terminator would attack soon, Kyle was sure. And he would be ready for it when it did.

* * *

Sarah lost herself in the familiar rhythm of preparing and serving drinks and snacks, bobbing her head in time to the beat of the music. The time passed quickly, as the customers and drinks blurred into one, which was just how Sarah liked her shifts to go.

She used her break to dial her apartment phone, huffing in resigned amusement when she only got the voicemail. "Hey, Ginger kiddo, it's Sarah," she said, tucking a loose curl behind her ear. "I'm just on break now. My front tyre got a piece of glass in it, and it's gone flat. Can you and Matt come and pick me up when my shift ends at six? I'm really sorry about it, I promise that I'll pay you back. Love you kiddo. See you in the morning."

That done, Sarah replaced the phone and turned to head back to the bar. She paused, feeling like someone was watching her intently, causing the hairs on the back of her neck to rise. She had gotten the same feeling several times that day, but hadn't seen anybody when she'd checked.

This time, however, she did. Leaning against the far wall, wearing an intimidating scowl that was making everyone steer clear of him, was a man with blonde hair, wearing a dark green trench coat. His arms were crossed over his chest, and his gaze was fixed on her.

Sarah shivered, feeling prickles going up her spine. Her father had always taught her to trust her instincts, and right now they were screaming at her that that guy was dangerous. She didn't need the menacing scar on his face to tell her that. The intent way he was looking at her made her feel nervous.

She had never considered herself to be particularly pretty, especially when compared to Ginger who could probably be a model if she hadn't decided to go for a career in music, but Sarah had garnered her fair share of admiring looks and phone numbers over the years. And she felt no shame in flirting to get extra tips, or to get out of trouble. If you had a resource, there was no point in wasting it, after all.

But the guy wasn't looking at her like he thought she was hot. Sarah wasn't sure what he saw when he looked at her, but she wanted his gaze off her. It was too intense, making the urge to flee flare in her stronger than it had ever been before. Her stress increased when she realized that she had seen him before, at least twice that day, including in her apartment parking lot. Was he following her?

Swallowing, Sarah hurried to the backroom and retrieved her bag before going back to the bar, stowing it underneath. That way, if the guy hadn't left and was still watching her, she could leave quickly as soon as her shift ended. Never mind waiting for Ginger and Matt. Sarah needed to escape that deep gaze, which was still fixed on her.

Unlike the first half of her shift, the second half seemed to drag on forever. Sarah was incredibly aware of the man watching her, and he didn't bother to look away whenever she glanced at him. She debated calling Roger, the bouncer, over, but dismissed it. From his menacing air, Sarah guessed that he was probably a gang member. He had that hard air around him.

She wouldn't be surprised if he had a gun, and she didn't want to risk a shootout in the middle of the crowded nightclub. Better to simply wait until her shift was over and hurry home.

She was so distracted by worrying over the guy watching her that she didn't notice the small commotion at the entrance as a large man in his late thirties, tall and powerfully built, shoved his way inside without paying, moving with graceful precision. He turned and knocked Roger to the floor with a single punch, making Stacey, who collected the entrance fees, scramble towards the phone with wide eyes.

Meanwhile, the man had made his way straight to the bar, where Sarah was mixing another drink, her brow wrinkled with stress.

"Sarah Connor?" he asked, coming up to the bar and reaching into his coat.

She turned, responding automatically to the sound of her name. She frowned at unfamiliar man. Something about frightened her even more than the other guy.

It was his eyes, she decided. They were intense, blue and depthless. And utterly emotionless. Nobody could completely hide their emotions. There was always something, in their expressions or body language or tone of voice, that gave something away.

But not this man. There was nothing in him to show that he felt anything at all. It was disturbing.

"Yes?" she said warily, her already on-edge instincts shrieking at her to run.

Her heart seemed to stop as he pulled a gun out of his grey jacket and pointed it straight at her head. It wasn't her first time, people had tried to mug her twice and she'd been caught in gang fights a few times. LA was not a particularly safe place for a young woman to live, especially her area. But she had never expected someone to try and shoot _her_ specifically, let alone in a room full of people.

Still, survival instinct kicked in. Even as the man pulled the trigger Sarah was throwing herself onto the floor, flinging up her arms to shield her head from the glass that shattered when the bullet meant for her went through it.

More gunshots sounded, but Sarah recognized them as coming from a shotgun rather than her attacker's handgun. She could hear people screaming and stampeding from the entrance, but she didn't dare try to leave the bar. She'd never make it to the door without being shot.

Still, she was desperate to understand what was happening and why her attacker hadn't tried to shoot her again, so she cautiously poked her head up enough to see over the bar top.

The room was almost empty, save for herself, a few terrified customers trying to escape without being hit and two men. One of them was, obviously, the guy who had tried to kill her. The other was, shockingly, the guy who'd been watching her. He was pumping a shotgun, a determined expression on his face as he advanced towards his opponent.

But the gun fight wasn't what horrified and terrified the young woman. She had seen more than few, and with the shock fading was able to think clearer. What did terrify her, however, was the fact that, despite each of the guy with the shotgun hitting her attacker in the chest, the guy stayed upright. He didn't even seem to be in pain, although Sarah could actually see the bullet holes in him.

Both men were focused on each other, ignoring Sarah crouching behind the bar. She swiftly crawled out and scrambled towards the door, staying on her hands and knees to avoid being hit. Unfortunately, another woman running to escape got caught by a riocheting bullet, and her body fell on top of Sarah, pinning her place. She was struggling to get out from underneath the body when the guy trying to kill her spotted her.

Ignoring the other guy, who was frantically reloading his shotgun, her attacker stalked towards her, raising his gun again. Knowing there was no way out for her, Sarah stopped struggling and defiantly lifted her chin to glower at him.

Then suddenly he staggered, as more shotgun bangs cut through the chaos of the room. Her would-be murderer staggered as a series of bullets sent him crashing backwards out the floor-length glass window to lie on the street. Sarah had no chance to take a breath, however, as the blonde guy grabbed her arm roughly and pulled her to her feet.

"Come with me if you want to live!" he ordered.

He wasn't really giving her the option to refuse, however, as he began dragging her towards the back exit.

Sarah automatically began struggling to escape his grip, but then she spotted the other guy again.

Despite having multiple gunshot wounds, he was struggling back to his feet, ignoring the bloodstain growing on his shirt.

Sarah's blue-green eyes went wide, and she stopped struggling, instead scrambling to keep up with the man's long strides. Gun-wielding stalker or not, Sarah would rather be with the lunatic who'd saved her than the one who'd tried to kill her.


	3. The First Escape

**Disclaimer: I don't own Terminator.**

**Chapter Three**

**The First Escape**

_**May 13th, LA City**_

Kyle kept a tight grip on Sarah's wrist as they fled the bar. Although she was currently cooperating, Kyle still figured that he ought to be prepared for an escape attempt once he informed her of his mission. It was going to sound insane, he knew, and he had little evidence save his words and the Terminator's inhuman abilities to convince her with.

The message John had given him for Sarah wouldn't exactly help convince her that he was sane and telling the truth. It was a personal one, an attempt to give the young version of his beloved mother strength for her coming trials.

Still, for now she was going along with him as he guided her out of the fire exit and down the back alleyway to where his stolen car was waiting for them.

He yanked the driver's door open and shoved Sarah inside, pushing her towards the passenger seat. While she clambered into it with obvious reluctance, Kyle used the door as a shield to fire at the Terminator following them. He shot the cyborg twice before using his last bullet to fire at the engine of another parked car, causing it to explode into flames. It wouldn't hold the machine off for long, but it gave him enough time to jump into the driver's seat and peel out of the alley. He kept one hand on the wheel as he shoved another round of bullets into the shotgun with the other.

"Fuck!" Sarah swore as she flung her arms up to shield herself from the glass that sprayed over her when the Terminator had abruptly slammed its' fist through the windshield and reached in towards her.

She recoiled, pressing herself into the seat to try and keep out of reach while Kyle cranked the wheel hard to the left. The sedan skidded violently, slewing sideways into a parked car. The momentum made the Terminator roll down off onto the pavement. Taking advantage, Reese slammed onto the accelerator and the car went shooting forward.

Sarah was half-in shock at everything that had happened, and struggling to comprehend what was happening. Blood dripped into her eye from a cut on her forehead, and she gripped the door-handle tightly. She forced herself to calm down and think. As the haze slowly evaporated from her mind, she finally noticed their speed, and her already-high stress levels increased.

They were driving dangerously fast. Far too fast for the middle of a city. This guy clearly didn't care about traffic laws. Or his ability to control the car. She hoped that his reflexes were lightning fast, otherwise she had avoided being shot, only to die in a car crash.

"Are you hurt?" Kyle demanded, glancing between Sarah and the road as he sped away as fast as the vehicle could go, which seemed infuriatingly slow, although he knew that he was toeing the edge of losing control from the speed.

A dozen horns blared as he sped by, completely ignoring the fact that it was obvious that each street only allowed people to drive in a certain direction. John had mentioned that to him before, too. Traffic laws, for safety or something. He didn't remember properly, and he didn't really care, either. Sarah was his main and only priority.

His charge was white as a ghost, as the old saying went. She was gripping the sides of her seat tightly, and had several cuts on her arms and one on her forehead from the broken glass that were bleeding shallowly. Despite the blood, they didn't seem to be too bad. Mostly superficial.

Her jaw was tightly clenched, and Kyle felt a slight pang of loss. It was just like her son's expression would one day be when he was struggling with something and trying to hide his uncertainty for his subordinates' sakes. For some reason, though, Kyle had been allowed to see under the mask from the start. He forced himself to shove away those thoughts.

"_Look after her for me Kyle."_ The last words John had said to him. Kyle meant to fulfil his promise, whether he survived it or not.

"Are you shot?" he barked out when she didn't answer his earlier question. Did she have a concussion? Those could be serious, and Reese only had the basic medical training every soldier got.

She shook her head slightly, and Reese felt his worry lessen a fraction. That was a small mercy. He didn't have supplies to deal with any injuries yet, and if he was remembering correctly, hospitals kept digital records of their patients in this time. Bringing Sarah to one of them would have to be a last resort only.

"Who the hell are you?" Sarah demanded, finally regaining her speech. She was confused and frightened, and had latched onto anger to deal with it.

"I'm Reese, Sergent, TechCom," he explained briskly. "DN38416, assigned to protect you. You've been targeted for termination."

"What?" she demanded incredulously. She raised her index finger and jabbed it in his direction with an irritated scowl on her face. "Okay, A: if by 'targeted for termination', you mean some psycho's trying to kill me, then yeah, I got that from being shot at. Thanks for the info. B: I don't need _protection._ Especially from some stalker who kidnapped me. I can take care of myself."

"It's very important that you live," Kyle told her, not responding to her claim that she didn't need his protection. John had already warned him that Sarah wouldn't welcome his help, at least not at first.

"_Mom was always so independent," _John had told him once, wearing the same expression of wistful longing that he always did when telling stories of the legendary Sarah Connor, 'Mother of the Resistance'. _"She hated to rely on anybody. You can only trust yourself, she used to tell me."_

"_Sounds like a hard way to live," _Kyle commented. Despite everything he'd seen over his life, he still trusted in the basic goodness of people in general. He couldn't imagine living your life, not even trusting a single person, always waiting for betrayal. John had given a small, sad smile in response.

"_She was a hard person. But a great one."_

"This is ridiculous," Sarah bit out, the sound of her voice snapping him back to the present just in time to spot a ramp that looked like it might be going out of the city. He quickly took it, eager to escape the crowded suburban area.

"Why would someone want to kill me?" Sarah was demanding angrily. "I'm just a bartender, not anybody important." She paused, her glare darkening even more when Kyle failed to respond to her.

"Better yet, why the fuck would the army, or whatever military you're a part of, send someone to guard me? What did you mean, it's very important that I live? And how the hell did that guy get up after you shot him? Adrenaline can't do _that_ much."

Kyle was mildly impressed at the barrage of questions she'd hit him with. She'd regained her fiery personality quicker than he thought most people of this time would. Then again, that wasn't really surprising. She was_ the_ Sarah Connor, after all.

"It's not a guy," he informed her, focusing on the most important thing first. The information she needed to know the most. "It's a machine. A Terminator to be exact. Cyber Dynamics Model 101."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Sarah huffed, scowling at him. "Are you saying that a _robot_ tried to kill me?" Her scorn at the prospect of a robot attacking her came across strongly in her tone. After all, that sort of thing only happened in sci-fi movies or books. Not in real life. Not to Sarah.

"Not a robot," Reese corrected her. "A cyborg. Cybernetic Organism." He was swerving through the roads dangerously, the reckless speed making Sarah feel nauseous.

"No way," Sarah denied it stubbornly, clutching the sides of her seat to keep steady. "He was bleeding. Machines don't bleed."

At that moment a blinding light seared down on them from behind. Reese quickly looked over his left shoulder and bit back a curse when he spotted a CHP cruiser coming up alongside them.

"Just a second," he said quickly to Sarah. He reached over to press her down, making her narrow her eyes dangerously. "Keep your head down." He then promptly rammed the side of the car into the police car, and turned sharply down an alleyway. Checking the rearview mirror, he noted grimly that the police car was still following them stubbornly.

He stopped suddenly, half-way down the alley. The police car promptly slammed into the back, and Kyle reversed, making it smash into a nearby wall before he drove off again, making his way into a car park and explaining the Terminator to Sarah as he drove.

Spotting a parking lot, he quickly drove inside, ploughing straight through the barrier.

"Alright, listen," he ordered her, noticing in the back of his mind how beautiful she was when her sea-coloured eyes flashed angrily. She _really_ didn't like being told what to do. "The Terminator's an infiltration unit. Part man, part machine. Underneath, it's a hyper-alloy combat chassis, micro-processor-controlled, fully armoured. Very tough. But outside, it's living human tissue. Flesh, skin, hair...blood. Grown for the cyborgs."

"Look, Reese-," Sarah began to say, only to be cut off again, increasing her ire.

Truthfully, everything he was telling her, with such conviction in his tone as to make her consider the possibility of it being true, was utterly terrifying her. And she still didn't understand why she mattered in all of this. None of it made sense, and people were dead because of it. She wanted answers, and she wanted to go back five hours, when her biggest concern was convincing her boss to let her have Ginger's wedding off.

"Pay attention!" Reese snapped. He went quiet again for a second, looking around the parking lot with a heavy frown. "We gotta ditch this car," he muttered.

Sarah felt a jolt of nerves at the use of 'we'. That made it sound disturbingly like he intended to bring her with him on whatever crazy adventure he was going on. She wanted no part in any of it.

He parked and turned to look at her, the intensity of his gaze making a shiver run up her spine.

"The 600 series had rubber skin," he informed her. "We spotted them easy. But these are new. They look human. Sweat, bad breath, everything. Very hard to spot. I had to wait 'til he moved on you before I could zero him."

Sarah clenched her fists and forced herself to inhale and exhale deeply before replying. "I am not an idiot, you know," she bit out curtly. Reese looked confused at that, like he had no idea where she'd gotten the idea that he thought that she was stupid. "That sort of thing is way beyond our technology right now. Even the military couldn't do it."

"Not yet," Reese agreed. He met her gaze, completely sincere as he went on. "Not for about another forty years."

Sarah stared silently at him for several moments, searching for any hint that he was joking. She couldn't find any. Her voice was flat and dull when she finally spoke. "Are you saying that it's from the _future_?"

Kyle nodded, "Yes. Or at least, one possible future. From your point of view. I don't know the tech stuff. It's not my area."

Sarah exhaled again, glancing away briefly before she looked back at him, still tense. "So, I suppose that means that you're from the future too, is that right?"

"That's right," Kyle agreed, mildly hopeful that she believed him.

He'd barely finished speaking when Sarah punched him as hard as she could in the jaw. As his head snapped back, and the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth from the tooth she'd managed to knock out, Sarah lunged for the doorhandle. Thankfully, Kyle managed to lunge and grab her before she got it fully open. He quickly grabbed hold of both of her slender wrists in one hand, using the other to shut the door again and lock it.

Sarah continued to struggle to escape his grip, sinking her teeth as deeply as she could into his hand. Reese barely reacted, gripping her wrists firmly and shaking her to gain her attention. She glared at him fiercely, slumping resignedly in his grip.

"Cyborgs don't feel pain," he told her stonily. "I _do_. Don't do that again." He wiped his bloody hand on his pants.

"I have nothing to do with any of this!" Sarah insisted, "and I don't want to! Leave me _alone_!"

"You're wrong," he told her flatly. "You have everything to do with all of this. And as for leaving you alone, I can't. You need to understand that the Terminator is out there. It can't be reasoned with, it can't be bargained with...it doesn't feel pity of remorse or fear... and it absolutely will not stop. _Ever_. Until you're dead."

Sarah swallowed hard, willing herself not to give into the feeling of despair creeping through her mind. She was a Connor, and, as her father had always said, that made her a survivor. She would get through this, mind and body intact. She wouldn't settle for anything less.

"Can it be stopped?" she asked quietly, stopping her attempts to break free of his iron grip. The definition of insanity was doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result, and it was obvious that he wasn't going to let her escape. For now, she'd put up with him. Whatever his sanity level, he wanted to protect her. She believed that much, at least.

She wasn't sure if she really believed him or not, but the fact that her life was in danger was the only thing that she wasn't questioning at the minute. And Reese seemed so utterly certain of his claims of her would-be murderer being a cyborg, and the both of them being from a minimum of four decades from now. It was hard to disbelieve him, when she took in the earnest grimness in his voice and body language as he spoke to her about all of it.

Kyle slumped at the question, looking at the steering wheel glumly. He wanted to lie and say that yes, of course he could stop it. Of course he could keep her safe. But he couldn't lie. Not about this. Not to _her_ of all people. At least she seemed to be coming around to believing him now. Or wasn't trying to run off, anyway.

"I don't know," he admitted softly. "In my time, with our guns, I could definitely do it, with some effort. But with these weapons?" He ran a hand over the shotgun. It was a decent weapon, for a projectile one. But strong enough to defeat a T-800? No way. "I just don't know."

Sarah looked down at her hands, feeling sick.


	4. Explanations

**Disclaimer: I don't own Terminator.**

**Chapter Four**

**Explanations**

_**LA City: May 13**__**th**__**, 1984**_

"C'mon," Reese ordered abruptly, breaking the grim silence that had sprung up between them after he admitted that he didn't know if he could stop the Terminator. "We need to get a new car."

Sarah nodded in quiet compliance. Usually she would rail against anybody who dared to try and tell her what to do, but not now. She was spent, exhaustion and fear draining her spirit. The adrenaline that had surged through her during the attack at the nightclub and the drive had disappeared, leaving her feeling empty and numb.

She wanted desperately to wake up from the nightmare that had suddenly taken over her life, but the stinging in her head and limbs from her cuts told her that she wouldn't get her wish, no matter how hard she prayed for it.

Of course, Sarah had never really believed in God, despite her grandmother's steadfast devotion to the deity. If God existed, why would he allow so many terrible things to happen?

"Alright," she agreed.

She and her self-declared protector left the battered car, and Reese was quick to grab a tight hold of her wrist, his other hand gripping his shotgun. She supposed that he didn't trust her not to try and escape again. Truthfully, she didn't know if she would. She didn't believe his story, not really. But she believed that he wanted to protect her. For now, that was enough to get her to stay with him.

They stayed low, hidden by the cars, as they made their way through the maze of vehicles. Every so often Reese would pause to check a car, before deciding against it and continuing onward. She wondered if he was looking for an unlocked one. If so, he was out of luck. Nobody with half a brain cell would ever be stupid enough as to leave their car unlocked. Especially not in LA city.

Her thoughts were proven false a few minutes later, when Reese approached the door of a late model brown Buick. To Sarah's surprise, it had been left with its window partway down.

Who does something that stupid? She mused to herself, watching as Reese stuck his arm through the opening and unlocked it to let them slip inside.

She tiredly climbed over into the passenger seat, rubbing her temples with one hand to try and soothe the pounding in her head. She could feel the blood drying on her face and arms, and figured that she probably looked like she was heading to a Halloween party.

Reese closed the door behind him, then used the butt of the shotgun to smash loose theignition assembly. He then began working on the newly-revealed wires to hotwire the engine. They stiffened a moment late when a police cruiser appeared, moving slowly between the rows ofcars.

She tensed up angrily as Reese grabbed her and pulled her down to huddle below dash level. A moment later a spotlight flashed across the seats above them. If she hadn't already decided that Reese was the better of two bad options, she'd punched him again for touching her without permission. As it was, she wasn't willingly to test his patience by hitting him again.

The light passed, and Reese went back to work, though they stayed low.

Sarah watched him quietly, remembering her father showing her how to do that when she was twelve. She'd never really understood why he taught her things like that. Teaching her self-defence and how to safely handle guns made sense, but how to hotwire a car or pick locks with a hairpin? Then again, he'd only started showing her that sort of less-legal skills after returning from 'Nam, and he hadn't really been in the best shape mentally after the war.

He'd been bad enough that she sometimes wondered how much of an accident his car crash when she was fifteen really was.

She pushed away thoughts of her father to focus on the situation she was in. As she thought over everything Reese had told her, she realized that she still didn't know why she was being targeted.

"Reese," she whispered. "You still haven't told me why its after me? Why does it want me?"

He gave her a wary look, uncertainty in his eyes. "There's so much..."

"Tell me," she demanded, before forcing herself to soften her tone. "Just start at the beginning."

Reese was quiet for another moment, and Sarah was about to try and press him some more when he finally spoke.

"August 29th, 1997," he stated. He gave a weight to the date that stopped Sarah's breath for a second, especially when she saw the look in his eyes. "Judgement Day. The start of the war. A nuclear war. It destroyed everything. All this-" His gesture seemed include not just the car, but the city, and the whole world. "-everything is gone," he continued, a grief she couldn't comprehend in his voice. "Just gone. There were survivors. Here. There. Nobody knew who started it." He paused, giving her an intense look. "It was the machines Sarah."

"I don't understand..." Sarah answered softly. She'd thought automatically of the Soviets when he'd said the word 'nuclear'. They were the only others with nuclear bombs. But the machines? Her mind jumped to his claim about her being targeted by a cyborg, a 'machine'. She almost wanted to tell him to stop, that she didn't want to hear anything else. She didn't.

"Skynet," Reese explained in clipped sentences. "A defence network computer. New. Powerful. Hooked into everything. Trusted to run it all. They say it got smart...a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond...extermination."

He paused, and when he continues it was less like a military briefing, quieter. More pained.

"I didn't see the war," he revealed. "My parents did, and my brother Derek was a toddler when the bombs dropped. But I was born after, in the ruins. Grew up there. Starving. Hiding from the H-K's."

"The what?" Sarah inquired. For once, she wasn't sharp with him. The pain and weary grief in his voice and eyes had softened her. She felt the uncharacteristic urge to try and comfort him, but she could tell that there was no comfort for all of this.

"Hunter Killers," Reese told her. "Patrol machines. Built in automated factories. They found everybody free and captured them, or killed them. But most of us were rounded up, put in camps...for orderly disposal."

He pushed up the sleeve of his jacket and showed her a ten-digit number etched on the skin of his forearm. Beneath the numbers was a pattern of lines like the automatic pricing marks on product packages.

"Concentration camps," Sarah mumbled, tracing the tattoo gently. Her grandfather on her mother's side had been a French Jew during World War II. He'd had a similar tattoo on his own forearm, and the stories he'd told her of his time in the camps before the Allies had liberated them had given her nightmares for years. Eventually her grandmother, her dad's mom, had put her foot down and forbidden him to tell her anything else.

Reese nodded. "That's what the vets called them," he agreed. He gestured at the tattoo. "Burned in by laser scan," he stated, before pausing again. Sarah didn't force him to continue, letting him explain at his own pace. "Some of us were kept alive... to work. Loading bodies. The disposal units ran night and day. We were that close to going out forever..."

He trailed off, a dark look on his face. Then he brightened slightly, looking towards her with an awed look that bemused her and made her feel anxious.

"Then you came along," he told her.

"Me?"

"Yes," he nodded. "You formed the Resistance, taught us how to fight back. How to smash the machines to pieces. And then, after you died, your son took over. He led us to victory. We had just won the war when we learned about the Terminator being sent back to kill you. Stop the Resistance ever being formed. That's why I was sent back to protect you. Why it's so important for you to survive. Without you and your son, humanity is doomed."

Sarah couldn't breathe. Black spots danced in front of her vision, and she shook her head in desperate denial. Reese made it sound like some great honour, but all Sarah could feel was horror. Sure, she was a good shot, and she had often been complimented on her fighting skills, but there was a huge difference between that and being the leader of a worldwide resistance movement. His mention of her death wasn't particularly appealing either, even if she knew that everybody had to die at some point, and she didn't even _have_ a son. And considering if Reese was telling the truth and wasn't crazy, said son would be a preteen at most when the war started, she didn't think she wanted one either. Such a fate, even if he won in the end, wasn't what she wanted for her child. What person would?

"That's impossible," she finally managed to gasp out. "I can't- I amn't-"

Her desperate attempts to refute his claim were cut off when headlights again swept over their car, followed seconds later by gunshots.

Reese swore and pressed two wires together, making the engine roar to life. A second later, they were tearing out of the car park at dangerous speeds, the other car at their heels.

The rear window exploded from a gun and Reese ducked, then cranked the wheel.

Sarah cursed and held on for dear life as they fled the parking lot and made their way onto the road.

Reese and Terminator raced along opposite sides of arow of cars, approaching the cruiser containing the machine chasing them pulled ahead and closed in on them from a diagonal angle as Sarah and Reese cleared the last car.

Reese spotted the other's shotgun levelled at his ducked, steering blind and keeping the accelerator windshield and side window exploded inward, making Sarah cry out. The Buick slammed into the black-and-white, spinning it intoa parked truck. The tyres screamed as the two cars slewed aroundheading for the exit.

Sarah heard sirens beginning to blare, as the police joined in the chase. A searchlight shone down on them, heralding the arrival of a searchlight.

"God save us," Sarah begged under her breath, taking back her earlier thoughts about not being religious and abruptly changing her mind and deciding that, yes, she did believe in God. If she survived this, she swore that she'd never miss another Sunday Mass again.

Their Buick hit thestreet, accelerating even faster and making Sarah groan as her stomach rolled from the motion. When she dared to check the side-mirror, she saw the Terminator's cruiser slide outbehind them, fishtail, and race roared as the cars went flat out. the buildings that were liningthe street became a chopper arched in behind them.

In the midst of her worry, she spared a moment to admire Reese's skilful control of the car, despite the dangerous speeds they were driving at. His reflexes must've been like lightning, to keep control with apparent ease.

He dodged across all lanes ahead of the gaining Terminator. They ran an intersection at a hundred plus. Sarah could feel the adrenaline pounding in her veins again as Reese used one hand to feed his two remaining shells into the shotgun.

"Steer!" Reese yelled at her.

"What?" she cried back, before letting out another curse as she saw him let go of the window so that he could lean out of the window and aim the gun, still keeping the throttle mashed down.

Sarah lunged over to grab the wheel, fighting to control the car. Her belt dug into her neck and side, making it hard to breathe against the pressure.

Reese was buffeted by the wind as he aimed at the deadly machine, ignoring Sarah's yells of "Reese!" The Terminator was beginning to overtake them.

The Terminator came up alongside them, aiming his shotgun at Reese. The soldier clenched his jaw, glaring at his opponent as they aimed at each other.

Sarah grabbed the shift lever and slammed it into reverse, making the Buick skid as its rear tyres locked. Reese and the Terminator fired simultaneously.

The shot meant for Reese hit the car door, while the shot aimed at the Terminator slammed into its head. Reese knew it wasn't enough though. As long as its CPU was intact, then the machine would continue its mission at all costs.

But the shot did make it lose control of its car. It spun radically, vaulting the curb in a screeching front-end roll. Finally, it crashed upside-down and lay there, smoke billowing out of it.

Meanwhile, Reese and Sarah slid to a stop in a cloud of tire smoke. Transmission fluid poured out of the car like blood. An instant later they were surrounded by an assortment of LAPD, the helicopter hovering overhead.

Reese grabbed his shotgun, preparing to fight his way out, but was stopped by Sarah grabbing his gun arm.

"Are you completely crazy, or just suicidal?" she snapped harshly at him, her chest moving up and down rapidly. "They'll kill you!"

Before he could do anything else, Sarah forced the matter. Counting on his determination to protect her, she unbelted herself and jumped out of the car, raising her hands in a surrender motion.

Reese had a dark scowl on his face as he tossed down the gun and climbed out of the car, raising his arms to mimic Sarah.

The police were on them in seconds.

As they were being tugged to separate cars, another officer slowly made his way to the smoking car where the Terminator had been. But when he quickly pulled open the door and aimed inside, he was stunned and confused to see it empty of everything save an abandoned gun.


	5. Police Interrogations

**Disclaimer: I don't own Terminator. Enjoy the newest chapter.**

**Chapter Five**

**Police Interrogations**

**_West Island Police Station: May 14th (morning), 1984_**

They were taken back to the West Island police station in separate cars. Reese was cuffed, but they'd come to the conclusion (based on the witness statements from the customers at TechNoir and the bruises he'd left on her wrist from his tight grip) that he'd kidnapped her.

As such, Sarah was treated like a glass flower about to shatter. She'd said that she'd gotten in the car willingly, but that didn't mean much when you took Reese's gun into account. Or rather, his guns, because they'd found another three, as well as a shocking amount of ammo, in the duffle bag he had been dragging around with them. Sarah had been so distracted that she had barely noticed it. She certainly hadn't realized that it was filled with weapons, though perhaps she should have.

Typically, Sarah would've been pissed at being treated so delicately. She had always prided herself on being strong, and keeping herself together no matter what happened. But she was exhausted, and Reese's story was playing on a loop inside her mind, increasing her distress. She had no energy left to spend demanding equal and normal treatment.

Instead, she spent most of the trip to the police station arguing mentally with herself on whether or not Reese was insane. His claims seemed ridiculous, but the look in his eyes when he'd spoken of the war, and the tattoo on his forearm, not to mention the inhuman actions of her attacker, made her falter and doubt her own beliefs. By the time she reached the police, she was ready to tear her own hair out in frustration and uncertainty.

"Miss Connor, can you please confirm that you're the roommate of Ginger Ventura, residing in 308 Westburne Heights Apartments, Mulberry Street, LA?" The officer in charge of the case, Detective Hal Vukovich, asked her in that infuriatingly gentle tone everybody she had spoken to since the chase had used towards her.

She was in his office, after having been patched up by an EMT. Her was damp, as she'd been shown to a bathroom to wash up and change into some clothes left in the station for this sort of scenario. The sweat pants were two sizes too big for her, the shirt frayed at the edges, and she was currently twisting a loose thread around her index finger while staring into space with a blank expression as she tried to gather and organize her thoughts.

"That's me," Sarah replied lifelessly. Then his mention of Ginger sunk in and her head snapped up to let her meet his eyes with a sharp gaze. "Why are you asking me about Ginger? Is she alright?"

The detective let out a mournful sigh and reached out to rest a hand on her shoulder. She resisted the urge to shove it off her. She hated being touched without permission, especially by strangers. Especially by _male_ strangers.

"I'm afraid there was a break-in at your apartment, shortly before the gunfight at your job," he explained. Sarah felt the remaining blood drain out of her already-pale face, and her bottom lip trembled in anticipated grief. She bit down on it to keep it still, feeling the metallic taste of blood fill her mouth.

"Miss Ventura and her fiancé, Matt Buchanan, were both killed by the intruder," Vukovich continued, and Sarah found herself burying her head in her heads, trying not to sob.

"Are you sure that it's them?" she asked, voice muffled by her hands. "It couldn't have been somebody else?"

She knew it was a foolish question, but she had to ask. The thought of Ginger and Matt, her closest friends, being killed, was the worst thing she'd heard that day.

And Sarah Connor was no fool. It would be too much of a coincidence for somebody to break into her apartment and kill her friends, and then someone else attack her at her job.

No, Ginger and Matt had died because of her. Whether they'd been killed by a time travelling cyborg or by some psycho who was targeting her for reasons unknown, was still up for debate. But that she was the reason for Ginger and Matt's deaths wasn't.

"I'm afraid not," Vukovich told her sympathetically. "The bodies have been identified already."

"Can I see them?"

The detective hesitated, but Sarah was determined.

"Please," she begged. "I need to see them. I can't believe it until I see them."

Hal sighed and gave in, helping her to her feet and guiding her down to the morgue.

Sarah shivered, refusing to give in to the urge to wrap her arms around herself for warmth and comfort in the cold morgue. It was all steel and sharp edges. Two bodies were laid out on a pair of white slabs, covered by plain sheets (also white).

Vukovich escorted her over to the nearest table, and pulled back the sheet without ceremony.

Sarah stared down at Matt's face. There was a cut at his temple, and a bruise around his eye. He must have tried to fight, but obviously failed. Not a surprise. The Terminator had barely been slowed down by being shot in the chest five times. Matt, armed with nothing but his fists and whatever he'd at hand, wouldn't have stood a chance.

Other than the bruise and cut, it almost seemed as if he were just asleep, the effect aided by his closed eyes. Of course, she'd thought the same thing when she had identified her father's body at fifteen. Given the way Vukovich had been careful to only show Matt's face, she suspected that her friend's torso wasn't in as good a shape.

She bit her lip again to anchor herself, before taking in and releasing a long breath. She pulled the sheet back up again to cover his face before she turned to Vukovich, who was standing beside her in respectful silence.

"And Ginger?" she inquired softly. She didn't want to do this, but she knew she had to.

Ginger had been her best friend for years. The only person who hadn't been bothered by a tiny girl being able to beat up all the boys in the school, even those several years older. Uncaring of Sarah's sharp tongue, and her habit of lashing out cruelly at the people around her when she was hurting. She'd been a pillar of support for Sarah after her father's death, and helped her settle her grandmother into a nursing home last year.

And now, Ginger was dead. And it was all Sarah's fault. Her lively best friend was gone before ever reaching the prime of her life, two months before her wedding day. All because somebody wanted to kill Sarah, and Ginger had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Vukovich took her over to the other slab, and again pulled down the sheet to Ginger's shoulders. Sarah inhaled sharply. This time, she couldn't stop the tears from escaping. Ginger looked perfectly normal, save for the shocked and terrified expression on her face, and the bullet hole in the centre of her forehead.

"Ginger," Sarah whimpered. She leaned down and kissed her friend, just to the side of the bullet hole. "I'm sorry," she whispered to her. "I'm so, so sorry, Ginger, kiddo. I'm really sorry."

"This wasn't your fault, Miss Connor," Vukovich assured her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

"My best friend and her fiancé were murdered in our home the same day I was targeted by a supposed cyborg programmed to kill me," Sarah scoffed through her tears. "I can do the math. He thought she was me, and he killed her for it."

Vukovich gave her a bemused look at the statement.

"You're certain he was after you?" he asked carefully.

Sarah shrugged dully. "Well he was dedicated enough to killing me that he got up after being shot five times, punched through a windshield, and chased us with a gun. So yeah, I assume so." She swiped her tears, crossing her arms defensively and lifting her chin determinedly. Her father would've been so disappointed in her, breaking down in front of a stranger.

Vukovich was quiet for a moment before speaking, guiding her back out of the morgue as he did so. "Are you aware, Miss Connor, that two other women named Sarah Connor were murdered today?"

Sarah sucked in a sharp breath, feeling the words like a blow to the stomach. She shook her head numbly. "No, no I had no idea. I usually watch the news and check the paper before work, but I didn't have a chance today. I was running behind."

"It happened according to their listing in the phone book," Vukovich explained. "Sarah Ann Connor, then Sarah Emily Connor. You're the third and last Sarah Connor listed in the book in Los Angeles."

Seeing the stricken expression on her face, he fell silent until they had arrived back at his office on the second floor, letting the information sink in. "I'll go and get you a coffee," he told her sympathetically. "How do you take it?"

"Just a splash of milk," she answered numbly, staring at her hands.

Vukovich paused at the doorway. "Miss Connor, why did you say your attacker was a cyborg?"

"That's what Reese told me," she answered flatly. "That it's a cyborg sent back in time to keep my unborn son and I from starting up a resistance and defeating the machines that are going to nuke the entire world in '97. Apparently he was sent back too, only to protect me, not kill me."

"I see," Vukovich said slowly. He made a mental note to grab Doctor Silberman, the station's criminal psychologist, and have him conduct an interview with the detained man. Clearly, the guy was suffering from some serious delusions.

* * *

Kyle fidgeted uncomfortably in the room where he'd been left. He'd been handcuffed to the table, and he could hear soft shifting from just outside the door, indicating that they'd left a guard outside the door to keep him escaping.

It wasn't a good situation. He had nothing to pick his cuffs with, and the station was filled with armed police officers. He'd have to get through all of them to escape, and he didn't have a clue where they'd taken Sarah. His only chance was to convince whoever was in authority of the danger Sarah was in, and to let them go together, but he doubted it would work. His story sounded insane even to _him_, after all, and he was living it. His lack of proof wouldn't help his case either.

The door opened and two men came in. One was dressed in a police uniform, a gun on his hip. The other was overweight (Kyle still couldn't believe that people were actually overweight in this time. He'd heard about it, about the time when food was so readily available people ate three filling meals a day and snacked in between, but he hadn't believed it. Not really.), wearing a blue sweater over a green button-up shirt and a pair of black trousers. His head was balding.

Kyle figured it would take him less than a minute to take the guy down, if his hands were free. It'd be a bit harder with his hands bound, but he could still manage. The cop would be harder, but Kyle still thought he could beat him, if he caught him by surprise.

He would try convincing them first though. No need to get into trouble if he could avoid it.

"Hello, Reese," the fat man greeted him, sitting down across the table. He wore a fake smile, like he was trying to appear friendly and sympathetic, but not quite managing. His tone was odd too. Sort of condescending. It made Kyle's skin itch in irritation, though he tried not to show it.

"I'm Doctor Silberman," he continued when Kyle didn't reply. "It is Reese, isn't it? Sarah, the woman you were with, said you told her that was your name."

"Sargent Reese, DN38416," Kyle confirmed, not bothering to offer his first name. "TechCom, under General John Connor. And I know who she is."

"TechCom, under General John Connor," the guy repeated. "I can't say that I've ever heard of that division, or General Connor. Then again, I've never had much to do with the military. Of course, all of our brave servicemen have my complete respect. They're the cornerstone of our great nation, no doubt about it."

Kyle narrowed his eyes at the man. He had a sleezy air around him, in Kyle's opinion. Still, he was probably in some position of authority, so Kyle had to convince him to let him go (with Sarah).

"You wouldn't have," he told him curtly. "TechCom is General Connor's elite unit. He created it in '03. I was transferred into it in '27. And you can't have heard of General Connor, because he hasn't even been born yet, never mind becoming the Leader of the Resistance."

"I see," Silberman murmured. His smile had faded, and now he wore a serious expression. "Now, Reese. When you say '03, and '27, you mean _two thousand_ and three, and _two thousand_ and twenty-seven. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"I see," he repeated, going quiet for a moment as he scribbled something down on his notepad before looking back up again. "So, Sargent Reese," Silberman continued. "Sarah said that you told her that yourself and her attacker were sent back in time. Him to kill her, and you to save her. Can you explain that to me please?"

Kyle huffed and nodded. "It was in '29. We had managed to destroy Skynet's central core, and the machines-"

"Skynet?" Silberman interrupted him. "What's Skynet?"

"Skynet is the computer automated defence system that we were fighting," Kyle snapped, beginning to get fed up. This was all a waste of time, time that Sarah didn't have. He had to get her to safety. The Terminator could arrive at any moment, and these police wouldn't even give it a challenge.

"It was created by Cyberdyne Industries to control everything to do with the military," Kyle explained impatiently. "But it destroyed us instead. Became sentient and launched the entire nuclear arsenal.

Sarah Connor is the one who first formed the resistance to fight back. She's the one who gave us back our hope! That's why Skynet sent the terminator back to kill her! She started the resistance, and her son led us to victory! Without them, everybody is doomed!"


	6. Dark Predictions

**Disclaimer: I don't own Terminator.**

**Chapter Six**

**Dark Predictions**

_**Fairview Motel, West Island: May 14th (midday), 1984**_

Several miles away from the police station where its' current target and her protector were, the T-800 model terminator assigned to kill Sarah Connor was sitting in an empty motel room it had broken into.

It had been badly damaged in the car chase and gunfight with the current Target's protector. However, its' assessment of the damage revealed that none of it would hamper its' abilities, save for blending in. As a result, it had temporarily ceased chasing the Target, in order to fix itself.

It no longer looked like a handsome man in his thirties. Instead, it resembled a bloody scarecrow with bullet wounds in its' stomach, chest, shoulder and right wrist. Its' eyebrows had been singed off and its' hair was nothing more than charred stubble. Finally, its' left eye was glistening with imbedded glass shards, showing the red light in its' interior exoskeleton.

It was sitting at a ratty folding table under the cover-less lightbulb that flickered slightly every-so-often. On the table in front of the machine was an array of small tools.

As emotionlessly as ever, the terminator removed the charred remains of his jacket and propped an elbow on the table. It examined its' non-functioning right arm, while part of its mind reassessed the mission parameters, given the previous nights' events.

Its' mission was to eliminate Sarah Connor who lived in California. Its' programming didn't specify a specific Sarah Connor, so the terminator had followed basic protocol and begun targeting each woman baring the name in Los Angeles, intending to go after any other woman in California with the name once he had finished dealing with the Sarah Connors in Los Angeles. The first two terminations had proceeded normally, with both women dying quickly. The third target, however, had escaped. The terminator called up a photo of the man who had been defending its' target and scanned it. A match appeared in its memory banks:

**Reese, Kyle. Sargent, ****DN38416.**** Twenty-two, born circa 2004. Spent three years in Century Work Camp. Assigned to TechCom, General Connor's elite unit for two years. Considered to be John Connor's protegee and one of his main advisors and supporters. Terminate if possible.**

The cyborg picked up an X-Acto knife and cut deeply into the skin of its' forearm, peeling it back to reveal a complex array of wires and mechanics. It put down the knife and wiped away the blood before it picked up a small screwdriver and began to systematically disassemble the damaged mechanism around the 12-guage hit.

The conclusion it came to as it repaired its' damaged mechanisms was a logical one, as all of its' decisions were.

The Resistance must have discovered the TDE and learned Skynet's plan after the battle. In order to stop it, they had sent an agent back to act as a protector back for Sarah Connor.

The knowledge did not alter the terminator's goals. It merely expanded them.

Prior orders demanded Kyle Reese be terminated if the chance arose. Kyle Reese stood in the way of the terminator's main goal: kill Sarah Connor before she could give birth to her son and they could create the Resistance together. Therefore, the conclusion was obvious. Kyle Reese had to die.

* * *

_**West Island Police Station: May 14th (shortly past midday), 1984**_

Detective Vukovich had his arms crossed and a frown on his face as he watched Reese being interrogated by Silberman.

He didn't like the criminal psychologist. He was greedy and callous, indifferent to the impact his words had on innocent people, and condescending towards witnesses, suffering from shock and trauma. Every woman who worked in the station, whether they were officers or support personnel, loathed the lecherous man fiercely, as he often spoke down to them and made crude passes towards the prettier (and younger) ones.

But Vukovich had to admit that the man was good at his job.

"So, let's do a quick review of everything you've told me so far, shall we?" Silberman said to Reese, glancing at his notes. "You're a soldier. Fighting for whom?"

Reese glowered at him, obviously annoyed at having to repeat himself. "With the One Thirty Second under Perry," he gritted out. "from 'twenty-one to 'twenty-seven-"

"And that's the year twenty-twenty-seven?" Silberman interrupted.

"That's right," the soldier confirmed.

"This is fucking great," Traxler muttered to Vukovich.

The older officer ignored him, frowning deeply as he watched the interrogation. The story sounded ridiculous. But the body language and voice of the man telling it were compelling. It bothered him. He'd seen a lot of crazy people in his time, and this guy stood out, and not just because of his story.

Reese's attitude was not that a lunatic. He was definitely suffering from severe trauma, but delusional? He didn't seem like it. Only his story made him appear crazy. Otherwise, he seemed to be perfectly sane. And he had an explanation for ever question he was asked. Vukovich had never heard of such a detailed delusion.

"Then I was assigned Recon/ Security in TechCom, last two years, under General John Connor," Reese went on.

"And who was the enemy again?" Silberman asked.

"Skynet," Reese bit out. "A computer defence system built for SAC-NORAD by Cyber Dynamics. A modified Series 4800."

"I see," Silberman stated gravely. He stood and paced slightly, looking over the notes he had written down on his notepad again. In fairness to Silberman, there Reese had given them a lot of information. "And this...computer, thinks it can win by killing one of its' enemies, who is also the mother of its' other enemy, before the boy could be born, and before she could set up this resistance? A sort of retroactive abortion? Two birds with one stone?"

Reese nodded in confirmation. "Yes."

Traxler snorted and grinned in amusement. "That Silberman just cracks me up," he said to Vukovich. He paused, and then continued when he was given no reply. "He had this guy in here last week who set his Afghan on fire. Screwed it first, then set it on-"

"Shut up," Vukovich ordered, leaning forward.

"...it had no choice," Reese was saying. "The defensive grid was smashed. We'd taken the mainframes... We _won_. Taking out Connor then would make no difference. Skynet had to wipe out his entire existence if it wanted to defeat us. We captured the lab complex. Found the time-displacement equipment. The Terminator had already gone through. They sent me to intercept, then zeroed the whole place."

"I see," Silberman repeated. "Then how are you supposed to get back?"

Reese looked down at the table, jaw clenching. "I can't," he admitted, meeting Silberman's gaze again. "Nobody goes home. Nobody else comes through. It's just him, and me."

* * *

_**West Island Police Station: May 14th (14:45), 1984**_

Later on, after Silberman had finally finished evaluating Reese (a process that had taken several hours), the psychologist, Sarah, and the two detectives were gathered in Vukovich's office, watching the recording of the interrogation.

Sarah leaned against a filing cabinet, watching the recording of the interrogation with a clenched jaw. Only the water bottle she was holding kept her from crossing her arms defensively over her chest the way she wanted to. She was exhausted and hungry, having had nothing more than some toast since before work the night before. Her head pounded and her eyes were scratchy from the tears she'd shed while alone in the office.

But she had cleaned herself up, putting on some make-up that she'd borrowed from a secretary, and tidied herself up as best she could, determined not to give in to weakness again. She was Sarah Jeanette Connor, the only child of Army Colonel Jonathan Connor, a Korea and 'Nam veteran and grandchild of General Owen Connor, who'd served during both World Wars. She was not weak, and she would not let this break her.

But it was hard not to be afraid when she listened to Reese's dark predictions for her future. Harder still not to believe him, when she could she see his fervent belief in what he was saying even on the grainy and blue-coloured television screen.

"_And you say that Sarah Connor is the one who formed this resistance before her death?" _the screen-version of Silberman was saying. _"That's rather curious, given she's a bartender and a student of History at LA College."_

Specializing in military history, Sarah mentally corrected. But bringing up her studies of military history would hardly help prove Reese's claims false. Quite the opposite, in fact. Sarah could, in theory, plan a battle. Studying battle tactics was a key part of the course, and Sarah was top of her class.

Video-Reese shrugged._ "I dunno anything about that,"_ he admitted frankly. _"But Sarah Connor is legendary. She took down an entire Terminator-making factory single-handedly, back in the early years of the war. Defeated a T-300 with nothing more than a knife when it managed to infiltrate one of the resistance's earlier bases. Figured out how to destroy the Hunter-Killers. Trained her son for years to take over for her. And that's barely skimming the stuff that she did. She's the one who gave us back our ability to hope, the one who showed us that the machines weren't indestructible, they have weaknesses. We owe her everything."_

Sarah shivered faintly as her listened to Reese describe her. The awe in his voice almost made him sound like a fanatic describing a goddess.

The woman he was talking about couldn't possibly be her. Sure, Sarah was considered a brave person, and she was a good fighter and talented with any weapon she ever touched. She needed it given her habit of attracting trouble.

She had been mugged at gunpoint twice, and taken down both muggers. At seventeen she'd been in the bank when there had been robbery, and was pretty much the only person who hadn't lost their heads except for an Army veteran. She had once gone into a burning building and rescued two young children who were stuck, when she had passed by and heard their screams, realizing that the fire brigade would've been too late to help the kids.

She was a skilled fighter, and devoted to exercising. She went to the shooting range to practice at least twice a week, more if she could manage it, and had won the state medal thrice in a row, and was hoping to go on to national level this summer. Her father had taught her wilderness survival skills, basic first-aid, fishing, and a few things about what to do if you were an area that had been nuked (the Cold War had been going on for decades, after all, and it didn't seem to be ending soon, unfortunately). She often read books related to war and such, for pleasure rather than anything to do with her degree. That sort of thing genuinely interested her, even if it was considered improper for a young woman to be fascinated by fighting and war.

But all of that was very different to setting up a world-wide guerrilla resistance and running it for years. That was very different from having a child, raising him, and training him to survive the nuclear apocalypse and be a war leader.

Sarah didn't even know if she wanted to have any kids in the first place! She wasn't good with them. Sarah had been brought up by a strict father and grandmother, and she had very little patience for nonsense. The few times she had babysat when desperate for extra cash as a teenager, the kids she had minded had all hated her because of her strict rules and refusal to give in to temper tantrums. She would probably be a terrible mother, and her son would grow up hating her.

Sarah didn't want that. Though, _John_ Connor. Her father had been called Jonathan. She could see herself naming a son in his honour, but using the short version to distinguish them from each other.

"_Why didn't you bring any weapons?" _On-screen Silberman was asking Reese, the question drawing Sarah out of her stressed, semi-circular thoughts. _"Something more advanced. Don't you have ray guns?" _

Traxler, standing in the back, grinned and nudged Silberman, who nodded appreciatively, a smug grin on his own lips.

"Ray guns," Traxler snickered. "Hah. That's a good one."

Vukovich shot him an irritated look, raising a finger to his lips. "Hush!" he hissed to his younger partner and the psychologist, who quickly forced themselves to sober up and turn solemn, though laughter continued to gleam in their eyes.

On the screen, they could see Reese glaring daggers at Silberman.

"_Show me a piece of future technology," _the screen-version of the criminal psychologist was urging him.

"_You go naked,"_ Reese replied curtly, his jaw tense with restrained frustration.

It was obvious, at least to Sarah, that he was beginning to lose his patience with the questioning. She couldn't really blame him. Silberman, with his sleazy, smug and condescending attitude and the lingering looks he shot frequently towards her legs and chest, really pissed her off as well. In Reese's position, she wouldn't have been so even-tempered for so long. She would have worked her way out of the cuffs and broken his nose.

"_Something about the field generated by a living organism," _the soldier was explaining. _"Nothing dead will go." _

"_Why?" _Silberman pressed him, ignoring any signs of Reese's rising frustration.

"_Well I didn't build the fucking thing!"_ he snapped.

Silberman raised his hands and patted the air in a soothing gesture that probably only pissed Reese off more. At least, it would have if he were doing it to Sarah.

"_Okay," _Silberman said, trying to calm Reese's temper. The soldier was evidently still annoyed, but he didn't snap again._ "Okay. But this..." _the doctor paused to consult his notes. _"cyborg...if it's metal..." _

"_Surrounded by living tissue," _Reese cut in, guessing the question.

"_Of course,"_ the on-screen doctor murmured in reply, right before the real Silberman stood up and put the tape on "PAUSE".

"This is great stuff," Silberman told them, excitement radiating from him. "I could make a career out of this guy." He jabbed a finger at the frozen image of Reese on the television screen. "You see how clever this part is, how he doesn't require a shred of proof. Most paranoid delusions are intricate, but this is brilliant." He started the tape again.

"_Why were the other two women killed?" _the recorded Silberman inquired.

Sarah felt her heart clench at that. The thought of innocent people dying because of her was a painful one. Sarah could be cold, but she was compassionate, and she cared deeply about the world in general. That two women had died because they shared her name, one of them having been shot in front of her two children, would never stop tormenting her conscious.

"_Most official records were lost in the war,"_ Reese informed him. _"The computer knew almost nothing about Sarah Connor's history. Her name. Where she lived at this time, just the state. No scanner pictures. The Terminator was just being systematic. We arrived in LA, so that's where it started."_

"_So,"_ the screen version of Silberman began to say, only for Reese to cut him off, evidently having reached the limits of his tolerance for the questioning and repeating the same things over and over again.

"_No!" _Reese snapped, glaring at the doctor._ "__You have heard__** enough**__. Now make up your mind and decide whether or not you're going to release me let me speak to Sarah! I need to talk to her!" _

"_I'm afraid that's not up to me," _Silberman informed him.

"_Then why the fuck am I talking to you?"_ Reese demanded, voice rising in anger. _"Get out."_

"_I can help you,_" Silberman tried to persuade the infuriated soldier, who was now ignoring him completely.

"_Who is in authority here?" _Reese snapped at the guard in the room, then he looked straight at the camera. _"You still don't get it," _he hissed. _"It'll find her. That's what it does. All it does..." _

Sarah's gaze was fixed on Reese, barely noticing how Vukovich gestured to Silberman, who was nearest to the small television, to kill it.

"_You can't stop it,"_ Reese warned, a wild expression on his face._ "It'll wade through you...," _as he spoke, he began rising out of his chair, yelling._ "...reach down her throat, and pull her fucking heart out! We'll all die! It'll kill us all!"_

A second later, the screen turned black as Silberman finally managed to turn it off.

Sarah saw black spots dance in front of her eyes, fighting the panic threatening to overtake her mind. Reese's warning repeated itself continuously in her mind as she stared blankly at the screen.


	7. Sarah's Decisions

**Disclaimer: I don't own Terminator.**

**Chapter Seven**

**Sarah's Decision**

_**West Island Police Station: May 14th (14:55), 1984**_

"_You can't stop it!" _Reese yelled at the camera, his expression wild and fierce looking._ "It'll wade through you all reach down her throat, and pull her fucking heart out! We'll all die! It'll kill us all!"_

The screen black as the doctor finally managed to switch it off, too late to shield Sarah from the soldier's grim prophecy.

"Sorry," Doctor Silberman said apologetically to Sarah, as the young woman stared at the now-black screen. Her face was ghostly pale, and her arms were crossed over chest defensively, her hands clenched into fists. She could feel her short nails digging tiny crescent marks into her palms, and was almost grateful for the tiny stinging sensation. It helped anchor her to reality. Even if her current reality was completely different to the reality she had lived in only the day before.

"It's fine," she told the criminal psychologist in a flat tone of voice. "So, what's the verdict then? Is he crazy or am the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary?"

Traxler smirked at her sarcastic suggestion, while Silberman shrugged, a faint smirk of satisfaction and excitement tugging at the sides of his lips.

"In technical terminology?" he asked. "The guy's a complete lunatic. Only thing that came out of his mouth that I believe is that he was a soldier. I'd say the PTSD was too much for him to cope with, made him suffer a, admittedly fascinatingly intricate, mental breakdown. Paranoid schizophrenia, I'd stake my life on it."

'_Actually, it sounds like we're all staking all of our lives on this. The lives of everyone in entire world, in fact'_ that irritating voice in the back of Sarah's mind that kept playing devil's advocate for Reese, whispered to her. She looked at Lieutenant Vukovich, needing more evidence before she could relax and accept that the world wasn't destined to end in thirteen years.

"And the guy who attacked me?" she asked him, expression even and guarded. "How could he get up after being shot in the chest?"

He grabbed something from behind his desk, then handed her a heavily padded chest protector that weighed a ton. "Sarah, this is body armour," he explained to her. She bit back the urge to snap that she knew what it was.

"Our TAC guys wear it. It'll stop a 12 gauges round. This other individual must've had one on under his coat." Vukovich's voice was filled with calm confidence in his own words.

Sarah wanted, more than anything, for the detective to be right. Maybe it was cruel, to hope that Reese was insane. He had saved her life, after all. But, on a grander scale, Sarah would much prefer for one man who's first name she didn't even know to be insane, than for him to be right and the world to be on the verge of destruction.

The consequences of him being right were too horrific to think about. Her mind cringed away from thoughts of the apocalyptic future that Reese had described to her. It was too awful to wrap her head around. She wanted him to be crazy. The world _needed_ him to be crazy.

"But what about him punching through the windshield?" she asked, putting down the body armour and chewing the side of her thumb distractedly.

Traxler, perched on top of a filing cabinet, gave a casual shrug. "Probably on PCP, broke every bone in his hand and won't feel it for hours. There was this guy once that..."

Vukovich cut him off with a gesture and sat beside the stressed young girl on the small sofa.

"Sarah, everything is going to be fine," he assured her gently, wrapping an arm around her shoulders in a paternal manner. If it had been a normal day, the delicate way he treated her would've earned him a slap and a lecture on gender equality. But then again, if it were a normal day, Sarah wouldn't have been in this situation in the first place.

"Why don't you stretch out here and close your eyes for a bit," he urged her. "You've been up for ages, a bit of sleep will do you good. While you're resting, Ed and I'll get to work linking up with the Marshalls so they can organize a safehouse with guards for you to stay in until we've caught this guy."

"What, like WitSec?" Sarah demanded, eyes going wide with alarm. "I'm not going into WitSec! I have a life! Nana-"

"Shh, just take a breath," Vukovich urged her. "It's not Witness Protection. Not yet, at least. We don't think it's necessary to go that far. But there is a dangerous man out there looking for you, and we have a responsibility to keep you safe until we've caught him. Unfortunately, part of that means that, for the next while, you need to be put in a safehouse. Just temporarily."

"I suppose that I haven't got much choice, do I?" Sarah remarked bitterly. She pressed the heel of her palm to her forehead, rubbing at the location of the pounding in her head. "I was supposed to chaperone the competition at the YMCA this afternoon," she murmured to herself. "God help me."

Vukovich gave her another sympathetic smile, patting her gently on the shoulder as he stood up again. Traxler and Silberman, Sarah realized for the first time, had already left.

"Go ahead and rest," Vukovich urged her. "You're safe here. There're thirty cops in this building."

"Fine," Sarah sighed, laying her head down on the armrest and shutting her eyes as he closed the door quietly behind him.

* * *

Vukovich paused after closing the door, frowning at the ground with a troubled air. His calm, confident demeanour had disappeared once Sarah was no longer able to see him. Despite the automatic desire to dismiss Reese's claims, part of him thought they shouldn't have dismissed him as crazy so quickly.

Hal had dealt with a lot of crazies in his time on the force. The look in Reese's eyes, that of pure, raw desperation, wasn't something that came from delusions.

Traxler pressed himself off of the wall he'd been leaning against while waiting for his partner. He gave Vukovich an incredulous look when he saw the troubled look the dark-skinned man wore, realizing that his partner was actually considering Reese's claims.

"C'mon, Hal," he huffed. "The guy's a wacko, we all know it. Time travel? Killer robots wanting to assassinate the future founder of the resistance before she can give birth to the saviour of mankind? Guy watched too many sci-fi movies before he snapped."

He clasped his friend's arm. "The world's not gonna end, Hal," he insisted, encouragingly.

"I hope you're right," Vukovich replied darkly. "Otherwise we're all in a lot of trouble."

"He's a wacko, Hal," Traxler repeated, eyes wide with earnestness shining out of his face.

"I really hope that you're right."

* * *

The moment Lieutenant Vukovich was gone, Sarah's eyes snapped open again, and she swung herself back into a seated position. She then rested her chin on her hand and stared sightlessly at the opposite wall in thought.

The explanations that the two detectives had given her for the terminator's inhuman abilities were logical. They made sense. The idea of travelling through time was the plot of a science-fiction novel. It had no place in Sarah's regular, occasionally dull, life.

But no motive had been given for why she and those two other Sarah Connors had been targeted in the first place, or how he/it had disappeared so easily when the police had caught up to them after the chase.

Nor had anyone provided a reason for why Reese was fixated on her. Why would he tattoo an identification tattoo on his forearm, especially if he believed it was from his time as a prisoner?

Yes, people suffered from delusions and such. But his claims and story were _so detailed_. His conviction and the belief he had in what he was saying plain and clear.

And all of that wasn't even mentioning the name he claimed was her unborn son's. John. Sarah's father had been named Jonathan, and everybody had called him John. Although she had never planned on having children, she could definitely see herself naming her son for the father she had adored so much.

Sarah growled, realizing that she was thinking in circles. She jumped to her feet and began pacing the office, trying to decide what to do.

She supposed that she was asking the wrong question. Instead of asking _did_ she believe Reese's story or not, she should be asking if she could afford to_ not _believe him.

If Reese was telling the truth, then the world would suffer the worst catastrophe in history, in only thirteen years. Billions would die from the bombs alone, and that wasn't taking those who died in the aftermath from the degeneration of society and the subsequent War Against the Machines into account either.

But there was still over a decade left until then. A decade that Sarah could do one of two things during: Option One: she ignored it. Decided that Reese was a madman, put the events of the past day and a half behind her, and focused on living her life.

Then there was option two: she could try and stop it. Speak to Reese, learn more about what had caused the nuclear war. And, at the same time, she could be preparing. Readying herself and her unborn son for the worst-case scenario. Making sure that, if the worst came to the worst, she had supplies and plans in place to save them, and set up the Resistance so her child could save humanity.

She stopped pacing, swallowing heavily against the lump in her throat and running a hand through her hair. Putting it like that, she didn't really have much choice, did she? Sarah Connor had not been raised to be a coward.

As long as even the tiniest part of her considered Reese's story to be even remotely plausible, then Sarah had a duty as a human being to try with everything that she had in her to prevent that apocalypse. It seemed the height of narcissistic to consider herself and her unborn son as future leaders of humanity, but she had to. The consequences were too high for her to do anything less.

For a moment, panic overwhelmed her. She had no idea where to start. She'd need to become an expert in battle tactics and guerrilla warfare. And it would have to be guerrilla-style warfare, because outright assaults would probably get everyone slaughtered. She needed supplies, and to figure out where would be best to locate their bases and God knew what else.

'_One thing at a time, Sarah' _she recalled, summoning her dad's voice to comfort and anchor her. _'If a task is too big to do all at once, then split it into smaller ones and start with the first part.'_

She nodded to herself, inhaling and exhaling deeply to calm herself down. Then she shoved away all thoughts of what to do to actually prepare for the apocalypse. The first thing she needed to do was deal with the terminator after her. All the plans in the world would do nothing if she was killed before even getting pregnant.

As much as she hated to admit that she couldn't do it alone, she knew that she needed Reese's help. He had experience fighting the machines, and knew far more than her about them. She'd need his help to defeat it. And they had to destroy it, because any other scenario ended up with them dead, which was unacceptable.

"Damn it," she grumbled under her breath, sitting down on the sofa again to try and think of a way to get Reese out of his legal mess. Unfortunately, his telling Silberman so much had done a lot of damage. Sarah could say that she didn't want to press charges, but that wouldn't change his diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, nor would it help with the charges of theft and unlawful possession of firearms.

"Fucking hell," she muttered, swearing again and rubbing circles into her forehead desperately.

She needed to get Reese and get them both out of there as quick as she could. They'd have her statement and information in the police databanks by now. Given everything Reese had told her, Sarah'd be shocked if the terminator _couldn't_ hack into the network and figure out where she was. Once it did, it would come for her. And she doubted that the thirty police officers scattered throughout the station would even manage to delay it.


	8. Battle at the Police Station

**Disclaimer: I don't own Terminator.**

**Chapter Eight**

**Battle at the Police Station**

_**West Island Police Station: May 14th (20:34), 1984**_

The terminator strode into the police station reception area, brushing past the just-leaving Doctor Silberman. The psychologist barely noticed the machine, too lost in thought about the potential of his newest case.

The terminator glanced at Silberman, dismissed him as a threat, and headed up to the desk. A uniformed officer sat behind the bullet-proof glass. There was a bored expression on his face as he filled in a form of some sort.

"I am a friend of Sarah Connor," the terminator informed the desk sergeant in his blank voice, using the lie that his programming predicted was most-likely to allow him to successfully enter the main part of the station. "I was told that she was here. Can I see her?"

The desk sergeant didn't bother looking up from his work when he replied. "'fraid not. She's making a statement at the moment. Come back later."

"Where is she?" the terminator pressed.

The sergeant huffed and finally dragged his gaze from the paper to reply laconically to the terminator. "Look, it's gonna be a while, and the chances are she's gonna be put into protective custody 'til the nutter that's after her is caught. You can take a seat and wait to see if you'll be allowed to see her, but I wouldn't put money on it."

The terminator stepped back, scanning the area, then turned back to the desk sergeant. "I'll be back," it declared, before turning away striding out, leaving the guard to roll his eyes and mutter under his breath, "Yeah, you do that."

The sergeant returned his attention to the form he was filling in. He had been on the night shift for a week by then, and was so exhausted the letters swam on the page in front of him. It wasn't too much of a surprise, then, that he failed to notice the abrupt appearance of headlights. At least until the truck rammed right through the wall of the station. He looked up at the last second as the glare fell fully on him. There was a large crash! as several cops and late night loiterers scattered to avoid the car that smashed into the foyer. It blasted right through the sergeant's booth, crushing him in the wreckage.

The Terminator leaped out of the car. It vaulted over the hood and smashed through the debris of the wall, leaping to the corridor floor in a shower of plaster fragments. It brandished the AR-180 like a pistol in one hand, holding the.38 in the other. A shotgun dangled at his side on a shoulder sling. He paused long enough to mow down the people in the lobby, before turning and marching forward into the back area.

* * *

Upstairs, Sarah had been flipping through a law book she'd found on Vukovich's desk, searching (unsuccessfully) for a loophole to get Reese released from custody.

The sound of a violent crash made her head snap up, and her heart stuttered in fear at the sounds of gunfire. She knew immediately that her time was up, and the terminator had tracked her down again. She glanced around wildly, searching for an escape route.

* * *

Downstairs, the terminator was steadily making its' way through the halls of the station, its' guns held aloft and ready to be fired.

Two cops, alerted by the noise from the lobby, ran out of the lounge and into the hall, one carrying a cup of coffee. They didn't even have a chance to unholster the guns at their waists before the terminator sent a burst of bullets from the assault rifle and they were flung backward in a spray of coffee and plaster.

Indifferent to the bloody sight, the machine continued on, continuously searching for any signs of Sarah Connor or Kyle Reese, its' two targets.

It came to a door that blocked it going any further, finding it locked when it tried the handle. Calmly, the terminator kicked the door in and entered.

Inside, a desk cop jumped to his feet and grabbed his gun as he dove for cover. He ran for a corner, while the machine tracked his movements and used them to choose where to aim. The wall exploded into plaster as the terminator fired. The unfortunate cop crumpled to the ground, blood leaking from his wounds.

* * *

Shots were echoing along with frantic shouting as Vukovich whipped open the door to his office.

Sarah was breathing rapidly as she fought the panic clawing at her mind, her sea-blue eyes wide with fear as the detective launched himself into the room and slammed the door behind himself, locking it quickly.

"You have a gun license, don't you?" Vukovich demanded quickly, hurrying to her side.

"Won the state championships last year," Sarah confirmed as she nodded, shuddering at the sounds of screaming and bullets being fired just below.

"Take this!" Vukovich ordered as he shoved his hand gun into her hands, and she clutched it with a white-knuckled grip, her face paler than a sheet.

"Stay here," he added over his shoulder as he left through the other door, locking it firmly as well.

Sarah stared after him, bleakly suspecting that she would never see him again. Another gunshot made her flinch in horror.

So many people dead, and all because of her. And, like Reese had warned, the cops clearly couldn't do anything to stop it, because the shots were getting closer every second.

* * *

The terminator paused after shooting several retreating officers and turned away. It marched half-way down the hall and stopped at a metal box. Unhurriedly, it ripped the cover off the station's main electrical panel. It pulled the hose-like 440 volt incoming line loose and fed it into the lighting circuit.

Several cops fired at the cyborg as it worked, but the bullets merely made it stumble. With a shower of sparks, all down the corridor the overhead fluorescent units suddenly exploded, sending sparks and glass showering everywhere.

The building was plunged into darkness. The back-up lights flickered on, giving a faint light, but not enough to pierce the darkness. The building was soon lit up again, however, but this time it was flames, not electricity that illuminated the station.

Through the smoke and emergency spotlights Terminator continued to move forward, inexorably.

A door behind him opened, and a cop jumped out and fired, hitting the machine in the shoulder. The terminator fired back with the .38 without slowing, killing the cop, then fired down the corridor with the assault rifle held at the ready.

* * *

In the interrogation room, Kyle was frantic, though he fought to keep his expression even. It was obvious what had happened.

The terminator had tracked down Sarah's location, and was making its' way towards her. The sound of alarms, gunshots and a mixture of panicked screams and yelling warned him that, despite what he was sure were their best efforts, the police officers weren't even slowing the terminator down.

Traxler, who had been in the room with him and another guard, bolted for the door. "Watch him," the detective ordered the uniformed officer over his shoulder as he hastened out of the room.

The door had barely closed when Kyle attacked his guard. He rammed into the man, making him smack his head painfully against the doorframe, then kneed him in the stomach to knock him to the ground. He kicked the cop in the neck after that, making him bang his head again, and the man fell unconscious.

The soldier hastily crouched down backwards, grabbing the keys to his handcuffs off the man's belt and fumbling to unlock his bonds. Every shot made him glance worriedly at the door, and he sighed in relief when he finally felt the cuffs unlock. He snatched the guard's handgun out of its' holster, then ran out in the hall, glancing in both directions before turning and going in the opposite direction of the sounds of battle and smell of smoke.

As he ran, he begged the god he didn't believe in that he was going the right way, and that Sarah wasn't hurt, or worse.

* * *

Traxler ran down the hallway and arrived at the armoury, where his partner was handing out automatics and Kevlar vests to a group of grim-faced officers.

He tossed Traxler an M-16, swung another over his chest and they rushed away, towards the sounds of gunfire.

"Come on!"

* * *

The terminator stopped before another door and blasted the lock with the riot-gun. It flung open the door, and scanned the room for either of its' targets. Not finding any sign of them, the cyborg went to move on.

Several cops ducked out of their cover and shot at the terminator, who was hit twice in the chest and leg. They were horrified when the machine barely even stumbled as it raised its' shotgun and killed the three of them.

Firelight flickered from an office doorway as the terminator passed it.

* * *

In Vukovich's office, Sarah had gotten her panic under control, and was now concentrating on trying to formulate a way out of her situation.

She could tell from the noise that she didn't have long, and she was positive that, when the terminator came to her office, neither the door nor her small handgun would help save her from it.

She hurried over to the window, and pulled it open to stick her head out of it and look around. Unfortunately, she was on the fourth floor of the building. The nearest tree, while in reach, was much too thin to hold her weight without breaking. If she tried to climb out on it, she'd be doing the terminator's job for it. The fire escape was two windows away, also useless to her.

She ducked back inside the office and looked around in despair. Her only other option was to pick the lock on the door and try and escape that way. It was a very dangerous risk, as she would have to try and get out without being found by the terminator, and without being killed by the smoke or the fire itself.

Another loud scream made her flinch, and she swiftly made up her mind. She was more likely to survive if she left the office then if she stayed in it.

She began crossing the room to the door.

* * *

The terminator sprayed another room with bullets, killing another dozen officers, before turning and heading down the hall. It glanced into a room as it passed, but saw no one.

Just after it passed by the room, Vukovich jumped out of his hiding place wielding his automatic and fired half a clip into Terminator's back.

His eyes bulged in shocked disbelief as the intruder turned, slamming a clip into his rifle and calmly fired two rounds into the veteran cop's chest.

Traxler grabbed his friend as Vukovich began crumbling to his knees and pulled him back inside the room. "Ed!" he cried. "Ed?"

Anger and grief flashed over his expression when his friend's only reply was a gurgle of blood before being replaced with determination as he also jumped out into the hall. "Hey, asshole!" he yelled, drawing the terminator's attention.

He fired his entire clip into the cyborg's torso, but his efforts were futile, and he too fell under a wave of bullets.

* * *

In the office, Sarah was half-way to the door when she picked up the sound of approaching footsteps. Instinctively, she dropped down onto all fours, still holding her gun, and scrambled beneath the desk.

Her breath seemed abnormally loud in the empty room, and she clamped her free hand over her mouth and nose to muffle it. There was nothing she could do about her heartbeat, though. It was pounding in her ears, and she could only hope that cyborgs couldn't hear that well.

* * *

Kyle had checked every room he passed, and his worry increased every time he found one empty of Sarah. Finally, though he came to a locked door, and hope sprang into his chest. All of the other doors had been open, so surely she was hiding in this one? He desperately hoped that it was so, because the terminator was closing in.

He used the gun he'd taken off his guard to shatter the glass in the door, before sticking his hand in and opening the door.

He hurried and glanced around, his hope dying when he saw no signs of her. He went to the side door and opened it to reveal another, also empty, office.

"Sarah?" he called in frustration. Until then, he'd stayed quiet to avoid smoke inhalation or drawing attention, but now he was desperate. He had to find her.

"Reese!" a familiar voice cried as he was going for the door, making him spin around.

Sarah was scrambling out from under the desk, wide-eyed and pale with a gun clutched in her hand.

"Are you hurt?" he demanded quickly, grabbing her free wrist and checking her quickly.

She shook her head, and he pulled her out of the room, dragging her away from the sounds of gunshots and towards an emergency exit.


	9. Escape From the Station

**Disclaimer: I don't own Terminator.**

**Chapter Nine**

**Escape From the Station**

Reese and Sarah quickly realized that their only escape route would be through the offices on their level. The fire had become serious, with the roof beginning to collapse in on itself. The smoke was thick, and they were forced to crouch down to avoid inhaling it. The biggest downside of doing so was that they were moving slower, and Sarah in particular was struggling. The smoke also made their eyes stream as well as blocking their vision, and Kyle could tell that Sarah, unused to these situations and untrained for them, wasn't going to be able to properly defend herself, should they come across the terminator.

Despite that, the two soldiered on determinedly, and Sarah kept a tight hold of her handgun. As they scrambled past another body, Kyle reached out and snatched the automatic off the body, Sarah flinching slightly as she watched him do so.

It felt disrespectful, but his actions were rewarded. He checked the gun as they continued through the offices, using the desks as cover, and discovered that it was completely full. The officer had clearly been killed before he could get the opportunity to fire on the attacker.

While Sarah felt guilty over essentially robbing bodies, Kyle had no qualms taking what he needed from the corpses. He'd been raised never to leave resources behind unless absolutely necessary and now more than ever, he needed all the weapons he could get his hands on. They passed several more bodies as they fled, and snatched the guns from each of them. Despite her discomfort, Sarah also collected guns, and by the time that they reached the second floor, they had six automatics, three handguns and four shotguns between them, all with varying amounts of ammo in them.

They eventually came to a filing room, and found Vukovich leaning against one of the cabinets. He was pale and breathing shallowly, but not dead yet. He weakly turned his head to look at them as they entered, and struggled to sit up. Sarah hurried to his side, her expression stricken. She knew the situation was hopeless for the detective, but she tried to put pressure on his wound anyway.

"Sarah, we gotta go," Reese told her seriously, grim-faced. "It's too late for him." He hated to abandon the man, along with everyone else in the station, to their fates, but there was nothing he could do to help them. He _could_ save Sarah, however, and keep their deaths from being in vain.

"He's right," Vukovich gasped. He patted Sarah on the arm. "'s not your fault," he told her gently, recognizing the guilt in her sea-coloured eyes. "Just don' let it be in vain, okay? Live, raise your son, and create the resistance like Reese says you will. If anyone can do it, you can. You're a survivor. I believe in you." He looked at Kyle, fumbling to hand over his handgun and automatic, along with the keys to his car. "Keep her alive," he instructed the younger man. "Do whatever you gotta do, just keep her safe."

"I will," Reese vowed, tugging Sarah away even as he spoke. She cast an anguished look back at Vukovich as they fled, and the tears that escaped her eyes weren't the result of smoke.

"I'm sorry," she whispered back at him as they ran. "I'm so sorry."

With that, she returned her attention to the flight. As much as it pained her, she had to leave her grief and guilt for later. Her dying would ruin everything, and mean that the deaths of everyone who had been killed by the terminator since its arrival would be for nothing. She _had_ to live, no matter what.

They scrambled down the back stairwell, coming to an emergency door, already open. They quickly dashed out, Sarah gasping in relief at the cool night air that contrasted sharply with the dizzying heat of the police station.

"C'mon," Reese urged her, not daring to stop even for a second until they had gotten sufficiently far enough away from the terminator. He scanned the car park hastily, pressing the button on the keys. The headlights flashed on a blue Volkswagen Rabbit, and they made a beeline for it. Kyle paused long enough to toss several of his guns into the back seat and see Sarah safely in the passenger seat where she pressed herself down and out of sight of the window, before climbing into the driver's seat and slamming the accelerator down to the floor.

He had kept one of the automatics, and as they drove away, the terminator exited the station. It raised its gun and fired after them, and Kyle returned fire, leaving Sarah to grab the wheel in a mimicry of their earlier car chase. The young sergeant grunted softly as a bullet sliced through his arm, but he could tell straight away that it wasn't serious. He ducked back inside the car and took over driving again.

Sarah glanced at Kyle dully as they fled, then turned away, crossing her arms over her chest in a defensive movement. He kept the speed up until they were deep into the empty back roads, and the drive was spent in silence, as Kyle made and discarded plans, and Sarah tried to hold herself together after her adrenaline finally crashed. The only break in the quiet was when Sarah occasionally gave directions on request.

Eventually, Kyle decided they were far enough from the police station that it was safe for them to stop and get some rest for the night. Not that they had much choice, as the gas tank was almost completely empty.

"Gas is nearly gone," he reported to Sarah, making her jolt out of her brooding and shift to look at him. "We'll have to pull in and find a place to camp. The terminator saw the car, so it'll be looking for it. We need to ditch it."

"Okay," Sarah sighed, running her fingers through her dark hair before quickly pulling it into a fresh plait while her protector guided the car into the brush to hide it.

They climbed out and began emptying the car of anything useful, especially the guns.

"Here," Sarah showed Reese a navy duffel bag that she had found in the boot of the car. It had a spare pair of clothes in it that he might be able to wear, but she made a mental note to stop in at a store and buy them some fresh clothing using the money Vukovich had left in his glove compartment. Their current attire, which was stained with dirt from the fire, wasn't exactly inconspicuous, and a night sleeping outdoors would only make them worse.

"Put the guns in it," Sarah instructed the soldier. "If someone sees us carting around a dozen automatics, we'll be arrested straight away."

Kyle frowned slightly. "Yeah, people don't carry guns now, do they?" he asked thoughtfully. "It's hard to believe. Why do they even exist when you don't need them?"

Sarah gave him a surprised look. Why did he think people didn't use guns at all at the moment? Of course people had guns. How else would they defend themselves? Sarah herself was firmly in the pro-guns camp, as her father had been. Kyle's question puzzled her.

She was a clever young woman though, and quickly figured out the miscommunication. When somebody died, their flaws automatically disappeared in the memories of their loved ones. That was what had probably happened in Kyle's time. The survivors of the nuclear war who remembered the world before Judgement Day wouldn't have wanted to remember the worse aspects of the current society. Kyle had probably only heard the good things about her time, and that he considered it almost utopic. When compared to his world, it probably was. But it wasn't perfect, and Sarah knew that perfectly well. Still, this was hardly the time to shatter his rose-tinted glasses about the 80s.

"Just in case," she said vaguely. Later on, she would have to sit down with the time traveller and give him a serious lesson on the current world so he understood the basics of how the world worked nowadays, but that would have to wait.

Kyle shrugged, accepting her answer, and shoved the guns into the bag. They also took a flashlight and a first-aid kit, as well as a long coat, before he handed her the bag and began shoving the car off the shoulder and over the embankment.

"Let's go," he urged his charge, taking the bag and handing her the coat. Sarah gave him a dry look and rolled her eyes, handing it back to him.

"_I've_ got my hoodie," she informed him. "_You_, on the other hand, have a cotton t-shirt with short sleeves. Put the damn coat on so you don't freeze."

She sounded so like her son that Kyle yanked it on without thinking. "You're a lot like him, you know," he told her as they began trudging through the woods in search of a place to spend the night.

"Like," Sarah hesitated. "Like my son, you mean?"

"Yeah," Kyle confirmed.

Sarah looked down, chewing on her bottom lip as she thought. She didn't reply, and Kyle indulged her clear desire for silence, staying quiet while they trudged down the slope.

Eventually they found a bridge, and ducked under it. The floor was wet, but Kyle was used to that sort of thing so it didn't bother the veteran soldier, and Sarah was too tired to care either.

They hunkered down beside each other, backs against the wall. Sarah shivered slightly as the events of the day continued to play out over and over again in her mind. Reese felt her shiver and misinterpreted it.

"Cold?" he asked her softly.

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and shrugged. "A little, I guess," she admitted, the most weakness she would allow herself.

Silently, Kyle wrapped his arm around her slim shoulders and pulled her to his side. She was tense, but after a moment she rested her head against his shoulder and huddled against him, drawing warmth from his proximity. This close to him, she could feel how malnourished he was. His bones jutted out sharply, but despite that she felt comfortable with him. Safe.

For the first time since the whole mess had begun, she felt she could relax slightly, even though she was under a bridge and still nervous that the terminator would suddenly show up again. She realized, with some surprise, that at some point in the past few hours, she had started to trust Reese.

"Reese," she muttered. "You got a first name, or is it just Sergeant Reese?"

"Kyle," he replied, a faint trace of surprise in his voice.

"Kyle, what's it like when you go through time?" she asked.

He was silent for a minute. "White light," he answered finally. "Pain. Like being ripped inside out... slowly. Like being born, maybe."

Sarah suddenly scowled and drew her hand out from under his jacket. Her fingers were damp. "You're wet," she stated disapprovingly. Her eyes widened in worry as she registered the dark colour of the liquid on her fingers. "Shit, that's blood! You're hurt!"

Kyle glanced at his arm, twisting it to see the wound. "It's fine," he pronounced after a second. "I caught one, back there."

"Caught one?" Sarah repeated, half-incredulous and half-furious at his lack of concern for himself. "You mean you got shot?" Reese shrugged.

"It's not bad," he tried to reassure her. "Went right through the meat."

Sarah glowered at him. "Are all people from time so laissez-faire about gunshots?" she demanded furiously. She huffed and grabbed the first-aid kit. "I guess that you won't go to a doctor," she sighed disapprovingly. Her frown deepened when Kyle nodded.

"Too dangerous," he stated.

"C'mon then, show it to me," she replied grumpily. "I'll see if I can fix it up."

Kyle opened his mouth to insist that it wasn't necessary, falling quiet at her sharp look, identical to her son's.

"You realize you won't be able to protect me if you bleed to death or get an infection, right?" she snipped. Her argument earned Kyle's compliance, and he stuck his arm out for her to begin tending to. It frightened her a bit, the obvious devotion he had to protecting her. She understood, theoretically, that it was important. But it was still disconcerting to have someone she didn't know so clearly dedicated to her.

"Tell me about my son," she ordered him as she cleaned the wound as best she could with some alcohol wipes. Thankfully, it didn't seemed that Kyle was right and it wasn't too deep.

"What do you want me to tell you?" he asked.

"What does he look like?" she questioned him.

Kyle looked at the ceiling above them as he considered his reply. "He's about my height," he informed her. He winced in pain and met her eyes for a second, his own widening slightly in shock before he continued.

"He has your eyes," he revealed, a note of something Sarah couldn't identify in his voice.

She glanced at his face for a second and then went back to work wrapping his wound with gauze. "What's he like? His personality, I mean."

"You can trust him," Reese said thoughtfully, thinking of the always calm and seemingly-omniscient man he was honoured to call a friend. "He's got that type of strength, the one that makes people believe and trust the person. We'd all die for John Connor."

Sarah finally sat back on her heels, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. She gave Kyle a weak smile that didn't reach her eyes. "I don't suppose you'd know who the father is? So I don't tell him to get lost when I meet him."

Kyle shrugged. "John didn't really talk about him," he answered. "I just know that he died before you set up the resistance, but I don't know if that happened before of after the bombs. He-"

Sarah held up a hand to silence him, her expression grim once again. "Don't," she ordered. "I don't wanna know."

Kyle inclined his head in acceptance and she returned to her previous position, huddled against his side. He looked at his injury, then nodded approvingly at her. "Good field dressing," he complimented her.

She gave a smile that failed to reach her eyes. "Yeah, my dad taught me field triage when I was a kid," she explained. "He was an army medic. Served in 'Nam. This was the first time I actually used the training, though."


	10. Of Photos and Memories

**Disclaimer: I don't own Terminator. AN: I have Kyle call his mother 'Mam' because that's the Irish pronunciation and Kyle's mother is canonically Irish. It's also canon (from Genisys) that he planned to return to his parents' house and rebuild it after the end of the war.**

**Chapter Ten**

**Of Photos and Memories**

_**Several miles from Arcadia, California: May 15**__**th**__** (03:32), 1984**_

Kyle fixed his sleeve and pulled his coat back on as Sarah returned to her place at his side. He watched from the corner of his eye as she tugged her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around. She wore a troubled look and looked up at the ceiling, the dark circles under her sea-coloured eyes worsened by her pale complexion.

She looked exhausted.

Kyle himself was a bit weary, but he'd slept for about an hour the night he'd arrived, and he was used to doing intense missions on little-to-no sleep. Sarah, on the other, was not. Not yet at least.

"So, was John the one that sent you here?" Sarah asked finally, breaking the silence between them and glancing at him with a torrent of emotions in her beautiful eyes.

Kyle quickly shoved that thought away. His emotions were entirely inappropriate, on a dozen different levels, and he didn't want Sarah to know. She'd probably be appalled at worst, embarrassed at best. He didn't want to upset her more than he already had.

"November 30th, 2029," he replied after she began to frown, when he realized that he hadn't responded to her question. "John led an attack on the LA work camp while General Justin Perry took a strike force to destroy Skynet's central core. The attack on the work camp was partially 'cause we needed to distract the machines, and partially because John'd learned that was where the TDE was. The Time Displacement Equipment," he added as clarification at Sarah's raised eyebrow.

"We won, but we were too late. Skynet had already sent the terminator after you. Colonel Bedell suggested we send someone back to protect you, and John chose me out of the volunteers."

"Volunteers?" Sarah repeated, blinking. "You offered? Actually, several people offered to give up everything to come back and risk their lives for me? Why the hell would you all do that?"

"It was an honour," Kyle insisted, giving her a wide-eyed look of earnestness. "A chance to meet the Mother of the Resistance, the legendary Sarah Connor. John agreed that I would go, since he'd told me a lot about you, so it'd be easier for me to track you down then someone who had only heard the general stories."

Sarah surveyed him with a frown. "You and my son were close then? At least, I assume so if he told you stories about me personally."

"Yeah," Kyle replied. "We met when the resistance liberated the camp I was in, I was twelve. John shot a terminator right in front of me. First time I learned that they weren't indestructible. After that, he just kind of took me under his wing." He shrugged.

He'd never understood why John had taken a shine to him, but he was grateful for it. He'd been honoured to be trusted enough to be considered his left-hand man (Kate Brewster, his wife, was his right of course).

Sarah nodded again, craning her neck to look up at the ceiling and chewing on her bottom lip. "Why did you call me a legend?" she asked finally. "I mean, I get that I started this resistance of yours, but that could've been anybody. If I hadn't done it, I'm sure that someone else would've. I'm decent with a gun and all, but at the core of it, I'm nothing special. Certainly not a _legend_."

Kyle gave her a disbelieving look. Surely she didn't really think that? John had said once that his mother claimed her greatest achievement was giving birth to him, and that she wasn't important, but Kyle hadn't really thought he was telling the truth. How could she think such a thing, after everything she had done? Even if she hadn't done many of the things John had told stories about yet, she knew that she was going to found the resistance.

Despite what she said, creating and organizing a worldwide guerrilla army was not something just anybody could do, especially in his time.

"You're _Sarah Connor_," he emphasized the name. "Everybody in my world knows your name. You taught your son to fight...organize, prepare. From when he was a kid. When you were in hiding, before the war. Risked your life to try and stop Judgement Day. United the survivors against the machines after it happened. You never broke, no matter what happened. People call you the Saviour Mother, in my time."

Sarah swallowed and tapped on her knee. "You talk about things I haven't done yet in the past tense. It's making me crazy. I can't think." She paused and chewed on her bottom lip for a moment.

Kyle realized with a jolt that he was seeing beneath the confident, strong mask she showed to the world, to the vulnerable, compassionate side of Sarah. The part that had led to her taking in a young girl who had lost her family to the machines and raising her until that same girl had died, just months before her adoptive mother. The part that had regularly visited the medical wing and spoke as regularly to the grunt soldiers as she did to the officers.

She had been described by her soldiers as cold, but deeply caring, and willing to do whatever necessary to defeat the machines and reclaim their world.

"Are you sure you've got the right person?"

Kyle looked firmly at her as he nodded. He had memorized every line and curve of the photo of Sarah that John had given him. He had recognized her on sight. "Yes."

"How can you be so sure?" she pressed. "I mean, there must be dozens of people, probably hundreds, with my name. How can you be certain that I'm the right one?"

"John showed me a photo of you," he explained briefly. He didn't add that John had later given him that picture and he had spent night after night gazing at it, using it to give himself strength.

Sarah pursed her lips and looked away, drumming her fingers against her leg impatiently. "I don't know anything about organizing armies or guerrilla warfare," she informed him abruptly, anger lacing her tone. "I'm ridiculously disorganized, nine times out of ten I'm late to class or my shift. I have to set my alarm an hour early to avoid it. And I'm terrible with people. 'Ice Queen' is one of the nicer ways people describe me. This mysterious father of my kid better hang around for John's infancy, otherwise I'll probably forget to feed him and he'll starve to death!"

Kyle kept his expression even. John really did favour his mother a great deal. This reminded him of the times when the anger and frustration his general bottled up finally erupted and he lost his temper over something. It was best, as Kate had told him the first time it happened, to just stay quiet until the rant was over, then use reason to calm them down.

Sarah was still ranting, and she had jumped to her feet to pace in a tight circle. "Look, Reese, you seem to think I should be honoured to be this future saviour mother, but I didn't ask for this and I don't want it. Any of it!"

She finished off with a sharp jab in his direction and fell silent, panting mildly.

"John gave me a message for you," Kyle told her evenly, unfazed by her fury. "Made me memorize it. 'Sarah"...this is the message... 'Sarah, thank you for your courage through the dark years. I can't help you with what you must soon face, except to tell you that the future is not set... there is no such thing as Fate, but what we make for ourselves by our own will. You must be stronger than you imagine you can be. You must survive, or I will never exist. Thank you, as well, for the love and care you gave me. Had it not been for your example, I wouldn't've had the strength for any of this. We all owe our lives to you, and I am proud to be your son.' That's all."

Sarah stared at him, her lip trembling slightly as the enormity of it all finished fully sinking in. Her breathing was ragged as she silently sat back down beside Kyle, hugging her knees to her chest tightly and staring out the entrance with a glum expression.

"You should get some sleep," Kyle told her. "It'll be light soon, and we'll need to get moving again."

"Okay," she agreed softly. "Talk some more."

"About what?" Kyle asked.

"About where you're from," Sarah answered softly. "I need to know, to prepare John and be ready."

"Alright," Kyle agreed, clearing his throat. He paused to think about what to say before beginning to speak. "You stay down by day, but at night you can move around. The H-K's use infra-red so you still have to watch out. But they're not too bright. John taught us ways to dust them. That's when the infiltrators started to appear. The Terminators were the newest, the worst..."

Sarah fell asleep, her head resting against his shoulder as he spoke. A little while later, Kyle too drifted off into a light doze, though he remained as alert for danger as ever.

* * *

_**San Francisco, July 29th, 2029**_

_With a roar an Aerial Search craft flew overhead. Its flashing red and blue lights and powerful search-lights stabbed down, looking for any traces of humans. The sight of it inspired terror in the hearts of anybody unfortunate to spot it. _

_But it was the earth that was a scene straight out of nightmares. White ash blew in drifts among fire-gutted ruins. Blackened bones lay everywhere in heaps. Searchlights swept the night and the ground Hunter-Killers rolled along, crushing the skeletons beneath their wheels._

_Tucked away in some debris for cover, Kyle fired at the nearby H-K with his plasma rifle. Combined with his comrades' attacks, they took the machine down quickly and quietly._

"_Let's go!" Colonel José Barrera, the leader of his patrol group, hissed. Kyle rolled onto his back and scrambled to his feet to join the rest of the patrollers. They stayed low and in the shadows as they returned to the nearby base, the light from their torches barely showing the ground in front of them._

_They made their way to into a labyrinth of tunnels that had once been the sewage system of the city, back before San Francisco had been reduced to ruins. As he made his way through the various checkpoints, Kyle listened absently to the various voices speaking over his radio. Updates, reports and troop movements were being reported. As one of General Connor's most trusted soldiers, Kyle considered it his duty to keep abreast of everything going on in the resistance, to ensure nothing could crop up out of the blue to cause problems for the general._

_Several of the members of the returning group separated at the different checkpoints to go to their own tunnels, and by the time Kyle reached his own tunnel only himself, his close friend Isabel Ferrera and the group medic, Allison Young, still remained. _

_He banged on the heavy metal door to his tunnel, reciting his name and ID number when the small hatch was pulled aside so a gun could be aimed at his head._

"_Reese, DN38416," he declared. The hatch closed and the door was pulled open a moment later._

_Kyle entered the smoky room, giving his hand to the German Shepherd to smell and petting it before continuing on to find himself a space to sit down and rest._

_The tunnels were a depressing place to be. People could be heard sobbing and coughing, everyone was dirty and huddled close together for warmth. _

_Kyle passed a group of 'tunnel rats', children who had been orphaned and now had nobody to care for them, so they lingered around the tunnels doing jobs in exchange for rations while they waited to turn thirteen and become eligible to join the army. _

_The three children, their faces smudged with dirt and their ill-fitting clothes ragged and thin, were huddled around a TV that had been turned into a firepit, the glow reflecting on their downcast faces._

_He finally found a small space and sat down, noticing a pair of boys, almost old enough to join the army, pouncing on a rat and lifting it triumphantly by the tail. A woman was sobbing loudly nearby. He recognized her as Anna Jeffries, whose only surviving son had been killed in action a week prior. She had been weeping and refusing her rations ever since. Everyone was certain that she would follow her three children and husband into oblivion soon enough._

_Kyle ignored all of it, reaching into his breast pocket and taking out his most precious possession. The only surviving photograph of Sarah Jeanette Connor, Mother of the Resistance. It had been taken when she was pregnant with her only blood child. Her hair was tied back with a bandana and she appeared aware of the photo being taken, her expression determined and slightly sad as she gazed out at something unseen._

_John had gifted it to him during the Nagadoches offensive four years before, and Kyle treasured it deeply. He was well aware of what an honour it was that John had entrusted him with such a precious picture. Just looking at it gave him the courage to keep going on. _

_She always had, after all. No matter what she had suffered, be it the loss of her lover (whom she had been deeply in love with from John's rare mention of his father) or Judgement Day itself, had kept her down. She had saved herself and son, and raised him even as she built up the resistance, uniting a hundred ragtag groups of survivors and teaching them to fight the machines._

_Sarah Connor had been a goddess among women, and Kyle wished more than pretty much anything that he could have known her personally. Instead, he was forced to content himself with the picture of her and the stories told by the veterans who'd known her and the more personal stories John told him._

_Her death while leading a supply convoy to Mexico had been a tragedy, even though her illness (cancer, it was believed, though they no longer had the equipment to be sure of the diagnosis) had been plaguing her for months beforehand. It was a testament to her strength that she had continued to lead the resistance (while subtly shifting more and more of her duties to her son) and going on missions despite her increasing weakness. Most hadn't even realized she was sick until a nurse had let it slip._

_The sound of a dog barking loudly broke through his thoughts, making everyone's heads, including Kyle's, snap in its' direction. _

"_Terminator!" the sentry bellowed, moments before the infiltrator tossed off its' poncho to reveal its weapons and started firing in all directions. Kyle scrambled to his feet, gripping his plasma rifle. While the civilians all fled from the machine, Kyle ran towards it, with several other soldiers._

_Powerbolts exploded among the fleeing people and beams seared the darkness.A running child was hit by a plasma bolt as he tried to escape and his body trampled on by the fleeing people._

_Kyle ran straight toward the machine and as soon as he was within range he levelled his energy-rifle andstarted to fire. A powerbolt grazed his cheek, making a support column explode behind him. Part of the roof collapsed as Reese tumbled to the ground, burned and bleeding from the explosion._

_Kyle was only semi-conscious with impressions imploding on him: running feet, flashes, energybeams raking the ground leaving molten worm-tracks, screaming, a dog howling._

_His eyes managed to focus on his treasured picture. He reached out to try and grab it, but he was too late. It caught on fire and started to blacken and curl, Sarah's beautiful face withering away. _

_A noise forced Kyle to drag his unwilling gaze away from the picture, now little more than ashes. _

_The terminator loomed above him, a silhouette in the smoky, hellish glare. Its eyes glowed red._

'_I'm gonna die' Kyle thought dully. 'I won't be able to rebuild Mam and Dad's cabin after all. At least I'll finally meet Sarah.'_

_His vision whitened out as an explosion racked the tunnel once more. _


	11. Temporary Peace

**Disclaimer: I don't own Terminator.**

**Chapter Eleven**

**Temporary Peace**

_**Several miles from Arcadia, California: May 15****th** ** (08:20), 1984**_

A dog barked in the distance as Kyle gazed down at Sarah, wearing an expression of tender adoration now that she was asleep and unable to see it.

At some point during the night she had shifted her position, and she was now laying across his lap. He had removed his coat and used it to cover her like a blanket, and she was curled into a ball to keep warm. Even sleeping, she appeared troubled, her brow wrinkled the same way her son's one day would when he was contemplating a particularly difficult problem.

Despite that, she was still the most beautiful woman Kyle had ever seen before in his life. John had been telling the truth when he first showed Kyle her photo and told him that it didn't do her justice. The dog barked again, and Sarah stirred.

She sat up, looking around her in bemusement, not fully awake yet. "I was dreaming about dogs," she commented confusedly as she ran her fingers through her hair to untangle the knots that had formed in it while she had been sleeping.

Kyle shrugged, ensuring that his expression was once again neutral. "We use them to detect terminators," he explained. He'd been telling her about that when she had finally drifted off completely the night prior. "And then we eat them when they die."

Sarah grimaced as she stood and brushed herself down to remove any dirt on herself, while Kyle collected the duffel bag containing their belongings. "Well, there goes my ability to eat hot dogs ever again," she mumbled.

Kyle gave her a confused look. "What's a hot dog?" he asked curiously, as they began making their way back to the main road again.

Sarah cast him a frown before explaining. "A type of food, made out of sausages, which are typically made from pigs, and put in long rolls with other condiments that vary depending on the person's taste. For example, I hate mustard, so I put ketchup on my hot dogs instead."

Kyle fell silent. It was obviously such a simple, basic fact of life for Sarah. Being able to eat whenever you wanted, and having a choice of what to consume.

But to Kyle, it was a revolutionary prospect. He had been raised to eat what you were given, when you were given it, and simply hope that you weren't allergic to whatever the ingredients were.

He couldn't fully wrap his mind around the thought, and he guessed that it was probably similar to how Sarah felt about what he'd told her of the future. Believing it was true, but unable to reconcile it to herself fully without more evidence.

He brooded over all of this until they broke through the treeline, arriving at the road. A car was approaching, and Kyle began to take out the gun he had hidden under his coat so that they could stop it. Sarah, spying his action, quickly grabbed his arm to stop him.

"Wait!" she ordered sharply. "If we highjack a car, the police'll be on our tail faster than you can snap your fingers! There's a much easier, _legal,_ way."

"You're the expert, I guess," Kyle agreed. It wasn't as if he knew anything about what was and wasn't considered acceptable or discreet behaviour in the 1980s. And the last thing they needed was to have law enforcement chasing them as well as the terminator.

Sarah quickly pulled her t-shirt tight against her torso, knotting it stylishly at the side. Then she dragged her fingers through her hair to try and style it slightly, fluffing it a bit to look nicer, before pulling her shirt down to reveal a certain amount of cleavage.

Kyle let out a slight noise she couldn't identify, and Sarah saw that he had averted his eyes and his cheeks were tinted faintly red. She grinned in a brief surge of amusement at the sight. It was funny to think that he could face down an emotionless, lethal killing machine without flinching, but the sight of a woman's breasts made him go red in embarrassment.

Then the mental reminder that said emotionless and lethal killing machine was chasing her and wouldn't stop until she was dead drained her mirth swiftly. She put on the fake, flirtatious smile she used to gain extra tips from sleazy men at the bar, and stepped into view of the road, holding out her thumb.

"Are you sure about this?" Kyle asked doubtfully, eyeing her sceptically.

"Positive," Sarah nodded firmly. "Might take a few cars, but someone'll stop eventually."

As she predicted, the fourth person to pass them, a trucker in his mid-to-late thirties with a cigarette dangling from his lips pulled to a stop in front of them.

"Need a hand?" he asked gruffly, as he dragged his eyes over her.

Sarah put down her arm and smiled her prettiest smile, as if she was a regular college girl and not a fugitive. "If you don't mind," she replied, batting her eyelashes flirtatiously. "My cousin and I's car broke down last night. We need a lift to the nearest town."

He grinned at her and nodded. "Hop in," he instructed them, leaning over to open the passenger door. "I'm passin' through Arcadia on my way to 'Frisco. I can give you a ride as far as there."

"You're a godsend," Sarah declared earnestly, scrambling into the middle seat. Reese followed, shutting the door beside him. His expression was tense and sour as he eyed their driver suspiciously. The trucker, meanwhile, was oblivious.

He turned the truck back on and offered his hand to Sarah, who shook it briskly. "'m Roger Moore," he introduced. "You?"

"Sa-die Jeffries," Sarah answered, smoothly changing her name half-way through. It felt ridiculous, using an alias, but she had no interest in speeding up their next confrontation with the terminator by telling random strangers her name and as good as sending up a flare saying 'Sarah Connor is here! Come and kill her!' Sadie was a nickname for Sarah, so it wasn't really the subtlest pseudonym she could've chosen, but it was too late to change it now.

"This is my cousin, Aiden," she continued, gesturing at the silent Reese, who gave a curt nod and then continued glaring out the window.

The trucker glanced the grumpy passenger, then shrugged and turned to Sarah again, striking up a cheerful conversation about music, that gradually shifted into one about the difficulties of employment nowadays after Sarah made a reference to her job, and that led to them discussing Reagan's administration. They both agreed that Reagan's Strategic Defence Initiative Organization was doomed to be a catastrophic failure and colossal waste of money before a comment on the radio changed the discussion to sports as they pulled into the small town.

"...and when it breaks right off the point they get some pretty rad tubes up there," Roger said as they neared a gas station. "Not awesome, but I mean, worth the drive, if you're hardcore like me."

"Rad tubes?" Reese muttered quietly to Sarah, the first thing he'd said since getting into the truck.

"He's a surfer," she explained simply, though from Kyle's blank look, it hadn't helped much.

"You from back East or something?" Roger asked curiously.

"No, he's from the future," Sarah replied casually, with a winning smile. She was even amazing herself with her acting skills. She could almost fool herself into thinking that she was relaxed and not ready to jump out of the truck and run for it the second she spotted any sign of her pursuer.

Roger laughed, grinning in amusement. "That's a good one," he hooted, before calming down and pulling into the gas station lot. "Listen, I had a rough night. I gotta stop and bag some Z's."

"Of course," Sarah agreed instantly. "I can't thank you enough for your help."

He waved her off, and they went their separate ways.

"Bag some Z's?" Kyle repeated, looking at Sarah for a translation. She replied distractedly as she shielded her eyes from the sun and scanned each of the stores scattered around in search of the cheapest.

"Means that he needs to sleep. There, I see a Goodwill. We can get some fresh clothes and stuff there."

Kyle nodded silently and followed her into the store, where she went to work finding cheap, durable clothes that would blend in, as well as some other things, including toiletries and a copy of 'What to Expect When You're Expecting' and '51 Ways to Save a Life: Battle Triage for Beginners', both of which were on top of the book bin pile and seemed like they'd be helpful in the future Reese had assigned to her.

After paying they left and split up to enter the public bathrooms, freshening themselves up and pulling on the clothes that Sarah had picked out for them. Kyle was finished first, and he stepped out and leaned against the wall beside the door to the women's restroom, staring down at his new clothes.

He was dressed in a pair of denim jeans, a plain green shirt with short sleeves and a black leather jacket. They were warm and soft, and unfrayed by years of use. Clean too. Kyle couldn't see evidence of a single bloodstain on them. He still wore the Nikes that he'd stolen from the shop when he had first arrived in 1984, and they fit him even better than the boots he'd been given when he first joined Connor's unit. And, considering the fact that TechCom always got the best equipment and gear on account of their dangerous missions, that said a lot to him.

He'd never owned things like this. And they were either brand new or second-hand, not fifth or sixth like he was used to.

It was beginning to weigh on him, the difference between his world and this one. He'd known of it, and he'd thought, he really had, that he would be okay. But instead he was finding it hard to breathe as he stared across at what he thought might be a playground.

Children were playing on the various equipment, their parents completely at ease despite the fact that said children were mostly out of arms' reach, and all Kyle wanted to do was yell at them for being so calm when the sun was out, stealing any vestiges of safety from the Hunter-Killers. How was it possible to be so at ease and happy? A small girl, wearing a pink dress with polka-dots, laughed brightly as her dog licked her cheek eagerly.

Kyle registered her innocence like a hit to the stomach. He thought about Sarita, John and Kate's eldest whom he had seen be born during a base transfer. By the time she was that girl's age, her innocence was half-gone, and she'd asked him solemnly if he was going to be killed by the machines as well.

He bit his lip and used the sting to try and regain control of himself, turning his head downward to glower at the ground while clutching the bag with their weapons in white-knuckled fists. It was hard to breathe, and his throat seemed to close over, his eyes wet.

This wasn't his world. And all of these had no idea that in less than two decades, most, if not all, of the people gathered at the park would be dead.

The door beside him swung open and Sarah sauntered out. Kyle barely managed to contain his awe at the sight of her, his distress wiped away and replaced by the warmth that he felt every time he saw her, no matter what mood she was in or their situation.

Sarah had changed into a pair of close-fitting, acid-washed blue jeans and a striped, off-the-shoulder top that showed off her flat stomach beneath a denim jacket. Her hair was pulled back into a fresh ponytail. She frowned, concern flicking over her expression as she stepped closer to Kyle.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he replied automatically.

She gave him a sceptical look, and he quickly changed the subject before she could press him on it. He wasn't sure that he had the ability to refuse her if she did. "We need a place to hole up for a while," he told her. "I gotta plan to destroy the terminator, but I need to make some stuff first."

Sarah's expression hardened into determination and she nodded swiftly. "I saw a sign for a motel a little down the road," she informed him, flicking her ponytail over her shoulder. "If we have enough money, then we can stay there for a bit. Depends on the amount we have left though."

Kyle stuck his hand into his coat pocket and pulled out a wad of cash, handing it over to Sarah. She skimmed through the bills, counting them and paling slightly in shock as she totalled it up to four hundred and fifty-six dollars. "Jesus Christ," she hissed. "Don't tell me where you got it. I want plausible deniability."

"Is it enough?" Kyle questioned her, making a note to ask what 'plausible deniability' was later.

She nodded, wearing a dry expression. "Oh yeah. We could last for a month on this alone," she tuck out enough for two nights at the hotel, then split the rest of the money in three. One third she gave to Kyle, who shoved it into his pocket indifferently, the other two bundles she put in her shoe sole and bra respectively. Kyle's flushing at her actions made her grin again. It was actually sweet, the way he looked away to give her a semblance of privacy.

"C'mon," she instructed him, turning on her heel and heading for the Motel 7 sign she had seen. "Let's go."


	12. Kyle's Breakdown

**Disclaimer: I don't own Terminator.**

**Chapter Twelve**

**Kyle's Motel Breakdown**

**Arcadia, California: May 15****th** **(11:55), 1984**

They walked up to the window of the motel reception, Sarah leaning in to speak to the bored-looking girl. She seemed about Sarah's age, and had a cigarette held to her lips as she flipped through a magazine with pink-coloured fingernails. Didn't look like too much of a threat.

A second later Sarah realized with a jolt of surprise that she had unconsciously started to check people out, weighing the possibility of them being a threat or not. She forced herself not to show her mixed feelings on that fact and spoke evenly to the girl, who had looked up from her magazine and had raised an eyebrow in expectance.

"We need a room with two beds," Sarah informed her.

The girl nodded and glanced down at a book with a list of rooms, their furniture and whether or not they were occupied in it.

Kyle glance over at Sarah from where he gone to pet the large German Shepherd tied up outside the reception. "With a kitchen," he called.

Sarah nodded and turned back to the other girl again. "And a kitchen too, please," she requested.

The girl frowned and checked her list. "We don't have any with two beds and a kitchen, but there's one with a double and a kitchenette," she offered. "Best I can give ya."

"That's fine," Sarah sighed, nodding in acknowledgement. Kyle would probably want to have a watch again tonight anyway. She'd try and get him to sleep, though, stay awake herself for a while to keep a lookout while he rested. It wasn't healthy, his staying awake and on alert so much.

"How long're you stayin' for?" the girl asked, scribbling something down.

"Two nights," she replied. She doubted they would stay that long, actually, but it was a typical length for a college road trip, which most people would assume they were taking.

The girl nodded and scratched in another note in her book, before reaching into her desk and pulling out a set of keys labelled '32'. "That'll be seventy dollars," she announced after a second.

Sarah nodded and handed over the necessary bills, accepting the keys the young woman held out to her in return.

"Room thirty-two," the woman told her, before grabbing her abandoned magazine and returning to her place, ignoring them.

Sarah pulled away from the window, keys in hand, and returned to Kyle's side. She glanced at the row of doors and jerked her head in the direction of the higher, even numbers. "It's this way," she informed him, leading the way to the motel room.

The room wasn't the worst motel Sarah had seen. She had spent a fair few nights in motels when her father took her with him on trips for work (Jonathan had worked as a trucker after being medically discharged when Sarah was two) or, after he died, when she'd put her grandmother in a nursing home and found herself without a home until university began. The dubious honour of the worst room she'd ever stayed in belonged to an awful place in Arizona.

Rats had made a nest in the wardrobe, mould had been covering half-the wall, there'd been a suspicious yellow stain on the bedspread and the single chair had given out when Sarah, who had been seven-years-old and light as feather, had perched on it lightly. Her father had promptly picked her up, grabbed their bags and left, demanding a refund as they went.

This room was actually decent, considering it was in a roadside motel of a small town. It had faded peach-coloured walls, a small kitchen area with fake oak doors on the cupboards and wardrobe, a clean bathroom with a shower, and a desk and chair. The bed was covered with an ivory bedspread decorated with small pink and purple flowers and matching pillowcases.

"Not bad," Sarah mumbled as she sat down on the bed with a sigh of relief. It wasn't very comfortable, but it was okay. She couldn't feel any springs poking out, at least. She glanced at Kyle, undoing her ponytail and running a hand through her hair. "We need to check your bandage," she commented. "And a shower will do us both the world of good, believe me. I got shampoo while we were in the store."

Kyle was looking out of the lacy blind, but he turned back to her, his usual expression of brisk determination on his face. "Not right now, later," he insisted authoritatively.

Sarah twitched in irritation. While she accepted that Kyle was the expert on terminators, and she needed his help, it rankled on her to let him boss her around. Sarah was a prideful person, and she knew it. She didn't like being told what to do.

"Right now, I'm gonna run out and get some supplies for my plan," he continued, oblivious to her annoyance. Sarah's frown deepened.

"What supplies? Why didn't you get this stuff while we were in the shop?"

"They didn't have what I need," he explained, shrugging. "You stay here while I go out and get what we need."

Sarah stood, crossing her arms and glaring at him. Kyle hid a jolt, reminded of John when he was giving somebody a dressing down. It really was eerie how similar the mother and son duo were.

"Look, Reese," Sarah growled. "This is my life that's on the line. The terminator is after me. If you have a way to stop it, then I need to know what it is!"

Kyle gave in to her demand, partially because he knew from experience with John that the expression she wore meant that nothing would make her budge from her position, and partially because he wasn't sure that he could say 'no' to her anyway. "Plastique," he explained simply.

Sarah furrowed her brow. "Explosives?" she checked. "The ingredients for bombs won't exactly be side-by-side with the oranges at the local grocery store, you know."

Kyle shrugged. "John showed us how to make bombs from stuff you'd find lying around," he informed her. "I'll go out and get what we need, then we'll make a bunch up this evening, and next time the machine tracks us down, we'll be ready for it."

"I hope you're right," Sarah muttered as she handed over some money to her companion and gave him a stern look. "Just buy it. We don't want or need to have the cops on our tail as well, remember? And make sure to buy some food as well, 'cause I haven't eaten in ages, and I bet that it's been even longer for you."

"Okay," Kyle agreed, accepting the money. He began to open the door, then paused and turned back to her. "If the machine catches up to you while I'm gone, go to the back of the shop where we got our clothes and wait for me there. If I haven't come after an hour, two at most, just go."

Sarah swallowed and nodded, clenching her fists in her jeans to keep them from trembling. After Kyle had left, she hurried over and locked the door, pulling the deadbolt. Then she pulled the desk chair over and jammed it under the handle.

She grabbed a gun out of the duffel bag, and the shampoo and shower gel out of the plastic shopping bag, before heading into the bathroom. The water was cold and the pressure was low, but Sarah savoured it anyway, imagining her worries and stress being washed down the drain along with the dirt and grime that covered her.

Her relief was dampened by the gun she left on the small shelf so that she could reach it easily, putting the shampoo and shower gel bottles on the ground instead. It was a constant reminder of the way her life had transformed in the past few days, none of it in a good way.

* * *

Kyle tried to hide the shock he felt as he entered the grocery store. It was filled with aisles that were stacked to the brim with food. He had never seen so much food or colour in all his life. He guessed there was enough stuff here to feed the entire American-based Resistance. And, according to Sarah, this was a small town. How much would a grocery store in a large city like Los Angeles have?

He shook his head, forcing the thoughts away, and began hunting down the familiar ingredients for making pipe bombs. John had shown him how to make them along with several dozen others, back when they were trapped in Century Work Camp in San Francisco. They'd used them to destroy the walls and quite a few of the guards so they could escape. That memory had given Kyle the idea for how to deal with the cyborg on his and Sarah's heels.

He picked up a packet of mothballs and felt his lips quirk upwards at the sides, remembering John showing him how to make the bombs, over a decade before and in the future.

When he'd met the general, Kyle had been twelve-years-old, and in utter awe of the legendary John Connor, son of Sarah.

People, both with the resistance and not, told stories about the Connors in his time, whispering them like sacred secrets. Even the scavengers and prisoners knew their name, and looked up to them with amazement. The Connors were the ones who organized the Resistance, linking with people across the globe and uniting them against Skynet. Taught everyone how to smash the machines into pieces and reclaim their world. The Connors knew the future, people claimed, even though they themselves denied it. They were above regular people, the closest thing there was to gods, some people thought.

It had been a terrible, demoralizing blow to the entire world when Sarah was killed. But John, even though he'd had more cause than anybody else to lose himself in grief over his beloved mother's death, hadn't done so. Instead, he'd stepped forward and taken up the burden of leadership himself, despite not being nineteen yet.

Then, several years later in Century, John had taken Kyle under his wing, and the younger man had never understood why. He hadn't been the youngest there, nor the most talented. He'd had a bad habit of caring too much about people, despite his older brother's attempts to toughen him up. Yet John had simply introduced himself, handed Kyle the first ingredient for the bombs, and Kyle had rarely left his side ever since. _"You're my right-hand, Reese,"_ John had told him, hours before the battle that had ended up with Kyle being sent back in time.

In hindsight, John had probably known about his trip to the past. In fact, the whole time travel thing, despite how insane it was even for Kyle, who was living it, made so many things make sense. It explained why they'd known J-Day was coming, when it was coming, and why John was so knowledgeable about the TDE. He was repeating what Kyle had told to Sarah, who had then gone on to tell her son.

Knowing that only increased the urgency of Kyle's mission. He had to make sure that Sarah knew as much as he could tell before he died. Kyle was under no illusions as to how this was going to end for him.

Having gathered his items, as well as the food Sarah had demanded he buy, Kyle awkwardly entered a line, copying what everyone else was doing. He hid his impatience as best he could, desperate to escape the chokingly-bright light and the press of people.

They were all so naïve, unarmed and unaware of the danger coming their way. It made his throat close over when he thought about it.

He realized his breath was becoming laboured and his fists were clenching as the cashier scanned his items through absently, wearing a distracted expression on her clean, unstressed face. It all seemed to press in on him, the lights, the bright colours of the packaging on the astonishing array of food, the _people_. Spots began to form in his vision.

He ended up pretty much shoving the entire wad of cash Sarah had given him into the cashier's hand, uncertain if it was too much or too little and indifferent. Then he grabbed the two plastic bags, and half-ran out of the store and back to the motel, earning himself more than a few strange looks as he did so.

Sarah must've been watching the window, because she opened the door as he came up, her own eyes wide with concern. "Kyle?" she began. "What-?"

He shoved past her into the room, dropping the bags and collapsing down on the floor to grab his hair in his fists and gasp desperately for breath. A moment later, Sarah was crouched near to him, but not close enough to make him feel pressed in on. Contrarily, he both wanted her closer and further away than she was.

"Kyle," she said gently. "You're having a panic attack. I know it feels like you can't breathe, but you can. Just take a deep breath, like this," she inhaled deeply, and Kyle tried to copy her. He kept his eyes locked on hers and echoed her as she released the breath. They repeated the actions several times, until Kyle was finally steady again.

He looked away in shame. "I'm sorry," he croaked out. "I shouldn't have- I'm sorry, I'm fine. I can complete the mission."

"Hey, it's okay," Sarah murmured. Her eyes were gentler than they'd been since they'd met. "I can't possibly imagine what you've been through, Kyle. There's no shame in having PTSD. My dad even had it."

"John never mentioned your dad," Kyle replied, unable to think of something else to say. Everyone in his time had PTSD, but it was different here. What could've given Sarah's father Post Traumatic Stress in this utopian society?

He didn't budge from his place on the floor, and Sarah stayed in place too.

Sarah gave a small half-smile and shrugged a shoulder. "He died a few years ago," she explained. "So obviously my son never meets him. But from the sounds of it, I named John after him. Dad's name was Jonathan."

"My father's name was Dennis," Kyle mused, summoning up the memory of his grim-faced father. "He taught me how to hunt. Mam's name was Mary and she was from a place called Ireland, and she spoke differently 'cause of it. She had red hair."

"Why don't you tell me something else about them," Sarah suggested gently.

"We should make the bombs," Kyle pointed out uncertainly. "We'll need 'em. And I have more to tell you about the war and fighting the machines, too."

"Tell about your parents while we make them," she offered a compromise. "Then afterwards we can talk business. Best not to be distracted while discussing that stuff, anyway. Too much of a risk of forgetting something."

"Alright," Kyle murmured in agreement.


	13. Kyle's Admission

**Disclaimer: I don't own Terminator.**

**Chapter Thirteen**

**Kyle's Admission**

_**Arcadia, California: May 15th**__**(20:35), 1984**_

"So what do we need for this, then?" Sarah asked later on, after having rebandaged her companion's injured arm. Kyle, recovered from his breakdown and determined not to bring it up again, pulled the ingredients for the bombs out of the brown paper bag and began placing them on the kitchen counter.

Sarah leaned over to look at them. "Corn syrup. Ammonia. Moth balls," she listed. She raised an eyebrow at Kyle. "You seriously know how to turn this stuff into bomb?" she asked, a hint of disbelief in her voice.

He nodded in confirmation. "Yup. It's easy once you get the hang of it," he told her nonchalantly, as if making explosives was as mundane as using the microwave. Maybe in the dystopia that was the future, it was. Maybe using a microwave was the astonishing thing in that time.

Sarah looked at the rest of the things he'd gotten. Several basic and long-lasting foodstuffs, but that was the minority. There were also several boxes of shotgun shells, road flares, tape, scissors, pans, a strainer and many other odd utensils, substances and chemicals. "What's that?" she inquired, pointing at one of the bottles.

"Nitroglycerin, basically," Kyle shrugged casually. "Bit more stable."

Sarah ran a hand through her hair, exhaled deeply, then pulled the brunette locks back into tight braid, making sure that there were no loose strands to bother her while they worked. "Okay," she declared determinedly. "Let's get down to this then. Tell me how to do this."

Kyle nodded briskly and began directing her, preforming the actions even as he spoke, to demonstrate what to do. Sarah paid close attention, aware that not only was this their only shot at surviving and destroying the machine hunting them, but that if she made a mistake, she might end up setting the motel on fire. That would just be the cherry on top of the disaster that her week had been.

As promised, once Kyle had finished showing her what to do and they got to work creating the biggest stockpile of plastique that they could, she began prying information on Kyle himself out of him. If she had to trust him with the lives of herself and her unborn son, then she had to know who Kyle Reese really was.

* * *

_**Los Angeles, California: May 15th**__**(11:55), 1984**_

The terminator sat in the motel room it had rented. It looked like something out of a horror film. Its' skin was waxy and pale, giving the machine a corpse-like appearance. A patch of its scalp had been blown away, revealing chrome underneath. A flap of skin dangled from its cheek, exposing some of the drive cables that made the lips move. The cyborg itself was sitting, appearing to stare blankly at the wall opposite it. In actuality, it was deeply absorbed in a search.

It had attached a wire from its' arm to a plug socket in the wall. Using it, it had managed to hack into the CCTV network of the whole country. It was slow going due to the less-advanced technology used in the 1980s, and the lack of internet. If the terminator hadn't been equipped with technology from the 2020s, then its' search would never have worked.

It was starting with towns near to Los Angeles, having calculated how far the two humans could've gotten, both on foot and in a car. Its' algorithims had decided that the pair wouldn't have risked staying in LA, so it hadn't bothered to search the large city.

Somebody banged on the motel door. "Hey, buddy," a man yelled. "You got a dead cat in there or what?"

The terminator turned its head in the direction of the door. A logic-flow diagram appeared overlaid in colour-coded words. It concluded with a list of potential appropriate responses:

YES/NO

OR WHAT

GO AWAY

PLEASE COME BACK LATER

FUCK YOU

FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE

The last started to flash, and then the words enlarged to fill the screen.

"Fuck you, asshole," the terminator recited the selected response in a monotone, before returning its attention to the search, distantly picking up on the sounds of the maintenance man leaving. A moment later, it heard a ping, and it turned its attention to a gas station security camera in a small town called Arcadia.

The photo had been taken earlier that day, and it was grainy. But the terminator recognized the pair huddled together to have a discussion despite the camera only catching sight of their silhouettes. It pulled up previous footage of its two targets at similar (though not identical) angles and compared them, receiving a 98.3 per cent match for both of them. The lack of full confirmation was due to the bad quality of the footage, as well as the angles the two were standing at.

If it'd had emotions, the terminator would have smirked in dark triumph. As it was, it merely unplugged itself and began gathering its things in preparation to leave in a business-like manner.

* * *

_**Arcadia, California: May 15th**__**(20:40), 1984**_

Sarah and Kyle had worked together to pull the dresser out so that they could use it as a worktable. Pans, packages and bottles cluttered the kitchen, and on the table between them were eight ten-inch lengths of plumber's pipes, all of them threaded at each end.

Kyle, who was sitting beside her, was in the process of showing Sarah how to tamp the highly explosive putty into the pipe bombs and seal them shut.

"Make sure there's none on the threads, like this," he instructed her. "Now screw the end-cap on...very gently."

Sarah did as he said, handling everything gingerly and not daring to deviate from his orders. It went against her nature to act submissive and follow other people's directions, but in the case of highly concentrated explosives, she would yield to his expertise. She was prideful, not stupid.

"That's good," Kyle gave an approving nod after looking over her bomb from any errors. "Now, we need another seven, just like that."

"Right," Sarah blew out a breath as she placed the finished device to the side and grabbed some fresh ingredients, starting the whole process all over again. "What age were you when you first learned how to make these?" she tried to sound casual as she probed him, uncertain if she managed it.

The truth was, while she had accepted that she needed Kyle's help if she was going to survive this whole thing, she still couldn't quite bring herself to trust him. He was an enigma to her, different from most men she knew. And while what bits he'd spoken of regarding his life explained all of that, it didn't change the fact that it left Sarah at a disadvantage. She had no idea how to read him, and vulnerability and relying on people had always been problems for her. She was desperate to understand him, and figure out how to handle him. Whether they liked it or not, they were stuck together for the long-term.

_Unless one or both of you get killed by the terminator, _a dark voice reminded her grimly. She suppressed a shudder and focused on threading the pipe carefully.

"About twelve, I think," Kyle answered absently. "Dates kinda run together a bit, in my time. But John was always very particular about keeping track of them, and he had everybody memorize dates of major battles and things. Said that we'd need it for when the war was over, when we were recording everything that had happened and rediscovering history we'd lost."

He hardly had to tell her that, given she had a list written filled with dates and information that he'd given her over the past few days. She'd bought the notepad in the shop, then written down everything while he was out.

"Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it," Sarah muttered. She'd read that line in a book once, as a young teenager. It had stuck with her for some reason.

Kyle nodded in agreement. "That's what he used to tell us," he told her. "That if we didn't make sure our descendants all knew what our predecessors' reliance on technology had caused, they'd end up in the same situation. Maybe even worse."

Sarah didn't know what to say. She put down her finished pipe bomb and stood, heading over to the kitchenette. "Are you hungry?" she asked, wanting to change the subject to something she knew how to deal with. "We need to eat. There anything in particular that you want to have?"

"Food is fuel," Kyle shrugged. "Whatever is fine with me."

"Right," Sarah mumbled. She surveyed the food that Kyle had bought, raising her eyebrow slightly. It was all canned, durable stuff. She guessed that he'd just gotten stuff that would last. It seemed to fit with his character. But a lot of what he had bought would taste strange when eaten with each other. Despite that, Sarah was still able to toss together a simple meal.

She heated up a can of linguine pasta, pouring in some chickpeas and smoked salmon. Once it was cooked, she dished it out, pouring a glass of water for them both as well.

When she brought the dinner over, Kyle stacked up their pile of bombs on the desk, and accepted his bowl of pasta with a thanks. His eyes briefly widened in amazement as he looked down at it, and he dug in hungrily, as if he had gone weeks without food. Perhaps he had.

Sarah, on the other hand, found herself unable to eat. She poked at her dinner for a while, forcing down a few spoonfuls, then shoved it across the table to her companion.

"You finish it," she suggested. "I can't eat. I feel sick."

Kyle looked alarmed at that. He studied her in blatant concern. "What's the matter?" he asked.

"It's psychological, don't worry," she assured him dryly. "Once the terminator is destroyed, I'll be fine."

Kyle looked reluctant, but he pulled her bowl to him anyway. "It's almost 2200," he informed her, after glancing at the clock on the wall "We'll head out at 0200. That gives you four hours to sleep if you want. I'll finish up with the bombs."

Sarah stood and went over to the bed without a word. Despite her earlier resolution to convince Kyle to sleep, she found herself too drained to do anything. She didn't bother undressing, simply slipping beneath the duvet fully clothed, with her shoes ready to be shoved on at a second's notice.

* * *

The bombs were piled neatly on the table and the nylon satchel he'd purchased to hold them lay nearby.

Kyle, meanwhile, was sitting in silent vigil at the window. His .357 rested in his lap and he was shirtless, showing the fresh bandage Sarah had put on him earlier, before they'd started on the bombs.

The room was dark, lit only by a streetlight outside. Behind him, Sarah was asleep on the bed.

She stirred, awakened by her uneasy mind, and shoved herself into a sitting position. Kyle glanced back at her briefly, then returned to staring out of the window broodingly.

He didn't tense when she left her bed and made her way to him, perching just behind him and out of sight of the window.

"It's going to track us down, won't it?" her voice was resigned and tired, simply stating a fact. It hurt Kyle to hear the tired acceptance in her voice, instead of her former, fiery defiance of fate.

Still, he couldn't lie. Not to her. "Yes," he admitted, hating himself when she inhaled a shaky breath.

"And it's always going to be like this, isn't it?" she pressed. "Me running. My son is never going to know what safety means."

Kyle swallowed, a lump in his throat. "I'm sorry," he said. He meant it too. He was sorry that he'd brought this chaos crashing into her peaceful life, that he couldn't be there to protect her for much longer. Sergeant Reese was under no illusions as to what was going to happen to him. "Sarah, if I get zeroed-" he began.

"Don't!"

"If I get killed," he went on stubbornly, determined to ensure that she knew what to do in such a likely scenario. "If I do, you have to get away, disappear without a trace. Different country, different name, everything. In case they send another one."

He doubted the possibility of that. Skynet's central core had been destroyed, rendering it useless and unable to do anything, and the Resistance techs had only found evidence of one terminator being sent back in time. Despite that, he couldn't take the risk.

"_Look after her for me, Kyle,"_ John's memory said to him.

"_I will," _he vowed back again.

"You must be so disappointed," Sarah stated abruptly. "Hearing stories about some legendary woman who could survive a nuclear disaster and start a worldwide rebellion, only to meet a regular girl on the verge of a mental breakdown from all of this shit."

Despite her harsh self-analysis, her voice was defiant. It brightened him a bit, to hear it. Defiance suited her far more than despair and hopelessness.

"No," he said softly. "I'm not."

She was even_ better _than he'd expected, because she was _real_. And whatever her beliefs, she was living up to the stories. So many people, even in his time, would have crumbled under the stress of everything he'd told her and the recent string of deaths she'd seen, not to mention her best friend and said friend's fiancé. She hadn't grown up with all of this, like the people of his time had.

Sarah, however, was determinedly holding herself together. She wasn't sobbing or giving in to the inevitable, she was fighting it kicking and screaming.

"Why did you volunteer to come back here?" she questioned him suddenly. "I mean, okay. I get that it was important, but you left everyone and everything you know, on what's essentially a suicide mission, to save somebody you never even met. I just don't get it. Why?"

Kyle couldn't think for a moment. His hand trembled slightly as he pulled the lacy curtain open a fraction to scan the car park. Then, suddenly, exhaustion, and a secret hope he had denied he had even to himself, took over and made him start speaking without his mind's permission.

"John gave me a picture of you once," he told her, shifting to meet her bemused gaze. "I never understood how he could give it up. Why would he even want to? It was his only photo of you. But he did. It was very old. Torn. Faded. You were young, like you are now. You looked...just a little sad... I always wondered what you were thinking at that second." He closed his eyes, reaching toward her. His fingertips trace the contour of her nose, chin, cheeks, though he never actually touched her.

"I memorized every line, every curve..." He opened his eyes, looking right at hers. "Sarah, I came across time for you. I love you. I always have."

Sarah was speechless, wide-eyed shock and understanding on her expression.

The look made Kyle come back to himself. He jumped to his feet, storming over to the pile of guns to begin shoving them into the satchel. "I shouldn't've said that," he announced, head bent to hide himself from her gaze and shame and self-recrimination in his voice. "I shouldn't have said that."

Sarah was at a loss. Of all the things for Kyle to have said to her, that was the last thing she had expected. The possibility of it had never occurred to her. She could tell he was attracted to her, but there was a huge difference between love and lust.

She couldn't return the sentiment. She didn't know Kyle. But, staring at him, she came to a decision without consciously making it. She didn't love yet. But she could, if she let herself.

She stood, and went over to him, stopping his angry movements and tugging his head over to meet her gaze. Then she stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips against his.

For the first few seconds, Kyle didn't respond. He was frozen in place, arms dangling by his side. Then, suddenly, he began kissing her back almost desperately. He grabbed her hips and lifted her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist and began undoing his trousers as he slammed her against the fridge to brace her while he pulled off her top.

Neither of them considered the consequences of their moment of passion, until much, much later.


	14. The Third Attack

**Disclaimer: I don't own Terminator. Almost over, folks, 1, at most 2 chapters left after this one. R&R to tell me what you think, and check out my newly-completed No Fate But That Which We Make Ourselves, also a terminator fic.**

**Chapter Fourteen**

**The Third Attack**

_**Arcadia, California: May 16th**__**(01:32), 1984**_

It was the dog that warned them. They had been lying, entwined and undressed, beneath the duvet when the German Shepherd that was tied up just outside of the motel began barking madly.

Kyle, with instincts honed by a lifetime of being hunted by machines, jolted upright, the gentle smile that he'd been aiming towards Sarah disappearing and being replaced by wild-eyes filled with contained panic. "It's here!" he announced, scrambling out of the bed and lunging for his trousers. "We need to get out of here!"

"The window goes to the parking lot," Sarah replied curtly, tugging her top over her head and snatching up the bag of guns as she made her way to the window. "We can take a car."

Kyle grabbed the satchel with the bombs and, while Sarah began climbing out onto the fire escape, jammed a chair under the doorknob and pulled the deadbolt across. He knew it wouldn't do much, but it would give them a few more seconds, ad he knew from experience that even a nano-second could mean the difference between life and death.

Sarah was waiting for him at the bottom of the ladder, and he called for her to choose a car as he climbed down as fast as he could. She hastily ran to a nearby pick-up truck, using a gun to smash the driver's window and then starting the process of hotwiring it, suddenly thankful beyond belief for her six-month-long period of tangling with law when she was fourteen. The skills she'd picked up were now coming in handy.

They got into the truck and Sarah slammed down on the accelerator, relieved to see that the tank was full. Kyle, meanwhile, busied himself readying a shotgun and putting a pipe bomb on the dashboard, ready to be armed and fired when he got the chance.

The terminator caught up with them moments after they fled the car park. The machine was on a motorbike, and adeptly avoided Kyle's blasts as the soldier fired at him. He leaned out further, trying to get a better vantage point, and Sarah swore violently, reaching over to grab him and pull him back inside.

"Are you crazy?" she shrieked at him furiously. "The goal is for _neither_ of us to be killed! Stay within cover, Reese, or so help me!"

"Copy!" Reese replied automatically to the commanding tone, and although he continued to fire at their pursuer, he stayed mostly within the vehicle. It was a good thing, too, as he ended up being hit in the upper shoulder. Had he still been in the position Sarah had moved him from, it would have hit his chest, an almost-certainly fatal injury.

At his yell of pain, Sarah jerked the wheel sharply, nearly losing control of the truck. Several bullets slammed into the back of it as she did so, making the truck tilt dangerously as they swerved around a corner and careened out onto the highway.

"Kyle!" she cried at the sight of the blood flowing rapidly out of his shoulder. "Oh, god!"

"Looks worse than it is," Kyle gasped out, trying to calm her. Sarah's face was pale as she gave him a doubtful look, able to pick up on the lie he had told her. It was definitely serious. Kyle was bleeding badly, and he could tell that the bullet had broken his collarbone. It wasn't a through-and-through.

The terminator crossed behind their stolen truck, coming up on Sarah's side and firing.

Sarah let out an instinctual scream as the doorpost next to her head clanged with the short burst had emptied the gun, and it clattered to the ground a moment later, terminator then drew a .38. took aim.

"Fucking hell!" Sarah yelled, as she slammed sharply on the brakes and cranked the wheel, just barely escaping. In the passenger seat, his consciousness beginning to slip away, Kyle groaned.

Behind her, glass exploded from gunfire. Sarah struggled to control the wheel as she frantically tried to think of a way out of her situation, highly aware of Kyle's injury. She watched, out of the corner of her eye, as the terminator went flying over the guardrail onto the lower freeway, but she had no faith that it would be enough to destroy it.

The pick-up rammed into the rail a second later, making Sarah jerk against her belt. She glanced quickly at Kyle, who was unconscious but breathing steadily, then scrambled out of the car, bolting to check on the state of their pursuer.

The terminator was slowly sitting up. Its' face was a mass of blood and its' clothing and skin were in tatters. Sarah watched, her stomach twisted into knots, as headlights flared behind it and a horn blared. A moment later, a double-trailer Kenworth gasoline tanker smashed the machine down and under with a metallic crash. The terminator rolled and ricocheted between the pavement and the speeding undercarriage until a stray bounce flung it up into the rear suspension.

"Please, oh god, please," Sarah begged quietly, her hands clasped to her lips. She swore in furious despair when the cyborg crawled into view again, then turned and sprinted back to the truck. She let out an enraged yell when she spotted the flat-tyre, then ran over to Kyle's side of the truck. She yanked open his door, drawing him mostly back into the waking world, and slung both the bag of guns and the satchel filled with their homemade bombs over each of her shoulders, before she then hauled him out of the truck.

"Move it, soldier," she grunted authoritatively. "Move!"

Kyle struggled to walk with her, and he willingly slumped to the ground when she set him down. She waved to stop a passing motorcyclist, then promptly shoved a gun in the shocked man's face.

"I need your bike!" she declared. The guy nodded quickly, gesturing to it.

"Go ahead!" he yelped. Sarah helped Kyle onto the bike, adjusted her bags, and kicked it into motion.

"Hold on as tight as you can!" she called to Kyle as she revved the bike. She nodded in satisfaction when she felt him grip her waist, though not as firmly as she'd have liked.

She was far better at driving the bike then the large pick-up truck, and she avoided the shots that the terminator, who had once again caught up with them, with ease. In her bones, she knew that this was it. Either they would destroy the machine, or the machine would destroy them. And Sarah wasn't going to give Skynet the satisfaction of beating her.

They hit the level freeway with a quarter-mile lead on the tanker, but the little bike was overloaded and she couldn't coax it above seventy-five. Behind them, the tanker was roaring forward, and Sarah felt tears of frustration and anger sting her eyes as she listened to its' approach. Kyle wasn't helping calm her down, as his head lolling on her shoulder terrified her. To her horror, she felt him start to fall sideways, his grip on her waist loosening.

"Hold on, goddamnit!" the young woman shouted. Ingrained soldier training made Kyle respond to the commanding note in her voice, and he did his best to obey.

She ziggaged through the four lanes, trying to lose the terminator, but it kept up with her, its' own vehicle far faster than theirs.

They plunged into a tunnel, as Kyle wrestled one of the guns out of the bag, twisting to fire at their enemy. His aim was off, however, and his efforts were fruitless.

The tanker was twenty feet behind them when they cleared thetunnel. Sarah dodged to one side and locked the bike slid, truck roared past them, hitting the trailers forced her closer and closer to the guardrailas the terminator tried to sandwich her. Finally, the bike slid to a stop and the rearmost set of trailer wheels slammed into the guardrailright in front of them.

Sarah and Kyle emerged on their bike from a cloud of tire smoke, cutting acrossall four lances behind the stopped semi.

Sarah tried to ride down the steep embankment but lost control, spilling the bike. She and Kyle tumbled downthe slope.

Sarah was quick to roll back to her feet, before she scrambled away from the wreckage, half-dragging Kyle and the bags with her, througha row of trees at a chain-link fence. Adrenaline pounded through her body as she crawled under the fence, tugging Kyle and the satchel through after. A second later, she looked up at the source of a sudden, thunderous roar.

"C'mon!" she urged Kyle, as she spotted the shadow of the tanker coming into view. "C'mon!"

Kyle struggled to his feet, a pained groan escaping him, and they ran across the storage lot of an industrial estate, ducking into an alleyway to hide and let Kyle catch his breath. Sarah glanced around wildly, an idea taking hold.

She yanked open the satchel, pulling out one of the bombs, and turned to Kyle. "Here," she said, shoving two bombs and a gun into his arms. "Wait here for me. I'll be back."

"What?" Kyle's eyes widened in alarm. "Sarah, no! I'm supposed to protect you!"

"You're hurt Kyle," she insisted, not wanting to be harsh, but recognizing the reality of the situation. "Stay here. I_ swear_, I'll be back as soon as I can."

She didn't let him protest any further, instead running out the other side of the alley. Kyle's shoulders slumped in guilt and misery. He wanted to stay with Sarah and protect her, but he knew that she was right.

From experience, he knew that having to look after a wounded comrade while in a combat situation only made a bad position worse. Your focus was split between dealing with the enemy, and protecting whomever you were with. His presence was only slowing Sarah down. The logic of it didn't make him feel any better about himself though.

A moment later, however, his guilt became a moot point, when his bloodloss overcame his adrenaline rush again, and he slumped to the ground, unconscious again, with blood from his wound continuing to flow freely.

Sarah, meanwhile, had made her way around the back of a pair of buildings, to the back of the tanker. She crouched down in the shadows cast by the buildings, trying not to be noticed, and craned her head to see where her opponent was.

The terminator was standing just beside the open driver's door, reloading its' shotgun as it scanned its' surroundings, searching for its targets.

Sarah carefully withdrew another pipe bomb from her satchel, and lit it gingerly. Then, she sucked in a deep breath, prayed to every god she'd ever heard of and didn't believe in to help her, and jumped up to wedge the explosive into tank-cylinder of the second trailer. She hurried to get out of range, but was seconds too late to fully escape the blast range.

The pipe bomb, aided by the gas in the tanker, erupted into an enormous fireball, which engulfed everything within its' not-inconsiderable range, including the terminator.

Sarah cried out in pain, as the blast sent her flying. Her back itched from several burns, though she didn't think they were too bad (unless it was just the adrenaline keeping her from feeling the full amount of pain.). Her hands and knees were scraped, and the salty taste of blood filled her mouth, as she had bitten her tongue. Her ankle throbbed, as she had twisted it as she fell to the ground.

Despite that, she managed to roll over, biting back a groan of pain as her burned back touched the concrete. She forced herself into a sitting position, using her elbows as leverage, and anxiously searched the area for any sign of the terminator.

A fire raged where the tanker had once been, and Sarah squinted at it, trying to make out what was happening within the bright flames.

At the epicentre of the fire, the terminator's flesh was sizzling as it tore itself loose from the twisted wreckage, staggered several steps forward and collapsed to the ground. The machine sunk intoa charred mess and stopped moving.

Sarah let out a relieved laugh as she took in the sight of the terminator, its' dissolved flesh making it look like a skeleton, motionless in the flames.


	15. Battle Royal

**Disclaimer: I don't own Terminator. And, the end! I hope you all enjoyed it. Let me know, and thanks to everyone who followed, faved or gave kudos to this story! You guys rock!**

**Chapter Fifteen**

**The Battle Royal**

_**California: May 16th**__**(02:45), 1984**_

Sarah finally relaxed, a smile of relief beginning to form on her face. She began forcing herself back to her feet, trying her best to ignore the pain from her various injuries, so that she could limp back to Kyle and tell him the good news.

They would have to go a hospital, she thought to herself as she looked down at her battered body. Their injuries were far beyond any level of motel triage. She'd have to come up a story to explain it. Say their car had crashed and the gas tank had exploded maybe. But that wouldn't explain Kyle's gunshot wounds.

She hummed and shook her head, trying to clear her foggy thoughts and focus. She probably had a concussion or something, and her adrenaline was starting to crash now that the danger was gone.

Except that it wasn't.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah spotted a shape moving. Her head snapped around towards it so fast her neck cracked. She let out a cry of horror and anguished fury as she stared in dismay at the large, terrifying figure that was staggering out of the still-raging fire.

It was the terminator.

The last flakes of its' false flesh were falling from it like burning leaves. Its' gleaming metal structure was revealed in all its' intricacy. It looked like a skeleton made of metal, but far more frightening.

For several long moments, Sarah couldn't move. She was exhausted and injured, pushed far past the limits of her endurance. The situation seemed hopeless. Nothing would destroy the machine.

But Sarah Connor's greatest strength had always been an inability to give up or give in. No matter what the odds against her were, she stubbornly pressed forward, not just enduring them, but beating them entirely.

It was what had gotten her through her father's death, her grandmother's admission to a nursing home and being left to fend for herself at too young an age. It was what had kept her going forward the past few days, despite her grief and fear.

It was what would make her survive Judgement Day, build the Resistance and raise her son alone amidst a world of ashes and bones.

And, at that moment, it was what made her finally start moving. She turned and bolted, adrenaline once again surging through her body, heading for the nearest door, a glass one leading into a darkened office building.

She didn't bother wrestling with the lock, simply shooting it off and kicking the door open, barely noticing the pain and trail of bloody footprints she was leaving in her wake.

She entered the dark office to the sound of alarms and distant sirens beginning.

Police would be arriving soon. Officers as vulnerable as the ones in the station, who had all been mowed down by the Terminator. Sarah had to finish it off, otherwise even more people would die.

She couldn't let that happen. She _wouldn't_ let that happen.

She ran down a corridor, entered an open door, locked it, then dashed off down a cross-corridor, trying to figure out what to do and letting pure instinct guide her.

The terminator followed her, kicking in the door and staggering after her. It spotted her reflection through a long glass window, and without hesitation turned in her direction and began stalking towards her, shattering the glass.

She looked over her shoulder at the sound, groaning in despair at the sight of it, then spotted a fire-door just ahead of her. She quickly pushed it open and almost fell through, slamming it shut behind her as she gasped for breath. She accidentally hit a button as she supported herself, not realizing that she had accidentally turned on the machinery.

The sound of a door crumpling in on itself warned her of the terminator closing in on her again, and she bit back the urge to swear at it. Why did its' programming have to be so powerful? Why couldn't it just give up already? If she lived through this, she'd dedicate the rest of her life to destroying every piece of technology that she saw.

_If _she lived, which was by no means certain. Especially if she continued to stay in place and catch her breath.

At the thought, she ignored the burning in her lungs and began to run again.

She found herself in a manufacturing area, and began staggering forward again, fumbling with her satchel, that she had miraculously kept hold of through her desperate flight.

The dark gallery was filled with whirring, clanking shapes, shattering conveyer belts and improbable mechanisms lashing mindlessly. It made her shudder and recoil, reminded of her pursuer. But she didn't stop, continuing to sprint through the maze as fast as her wounds would let her go.

A clanging noise caught her attention, and she looked up, face paling in terror as she took in the sight of the terminator, on the catwalk just above her. Time seemed to slow down, and a strange ringing noise began to sound in her ears.

She barely noticed what she was doing as she pulled out the last bomb (most of them had disappeared in her panicked flight), lit it and readied it to throw.

Five years of volunteering at the local YMCA as a PE instructor paid off. She threw the sparking bomb like it was a volleyball, and her aim was true.

The bomb hit the terminator in its' torso, getting stuck between two of its' 'ribs' and some wires. There was a moment where nothing happened, and Sarah waited, her heart stuck in her throat.

Then she slammed her eyes shut as the bomb exploded.

She let out a scream of pain as some debris landed in her leg, and crumpled to her floor, letting out another cry when her burned back touched to hard floor.

The sprinklers turned on, making her even more uncomfortable, but she barely noticed it.

Black spots danced in front of her eyes as she forced them to open, and her vision swam, tinted red by blood leaking into her eyes from a cut on her cheek. Studying the area, she tried to find any sign of her enemy. She wouldn't relax until she saw that it was destroyed beyond any hope of repair.

She could see clumps of metal and debris all over the place, but there was no sign of the terminator.

She looked around, spying a wall phone, and began dragging herself towards it with the last bit of her flagging energy reserves. She would come up with a story later, right now she needed an ambulance, especially for Kyle.

God, let him be alright, she begged. Please.

She crawled past a heap of metal, shuddering when she recognized the terminator's head and a section of its' torso, with wires trailing out of it.

Just as she was passing by, it suddenly sprang to life and lunged for her.

Sarah didn't even have the strength to let out a sob. In fact, she was more pissed than upset.

"Why won't you just fucking die you goddamned bastard?" she screamed at it, scrambling backward as best she could. Her only advantage was that the terminator was in as bad a shape as she was.

The machine dragged itself over the floor after her, its' steel fingers reaching out and grasping at her.

Sarah was in utter agony as she scrabbled away, straining for breath. She flopped from the catwalk onto the moving strip of the conveyer belt, and was carried into the intricate lattice of equipment. She rolled off weakly before going under a set of sorting rollers.

The terminator stubbornly continued to crawl after her, dragging its' body in its' wake. It tracked her unerringly, its' eyes glowing a sinister red in the darkness of the factory.

Sarah moves deeper into the dark, clashing jungle of machinery. Soon enough, she found herself surrounded by a rain-drenched tangle of cables, pipes and unforgiving mechanisms of steel. The Terminator clambered through after her.

Water poured into Sarah's eyes, straining her vision even further as she caught sight of a faint ray of hope.

It was a control box.

She used up the last of her waning strength to drag herself toward it.

The terminator spotted her wedged in a tiny crawl space, with no way out. She was trapped.

It crawled the last few feet, clearly believing it had cornered her.

Sarah was hypnotised by its' demonic gaze as she watched the Terminator reaching out for her.

Her hand clawed around to the front of the control panel, seeking the red button she had seen.

Her fingers, wet with a mixture of water from the sprinklers and blood, felt the button as the cyborg's steel hand reached out to close the final few inches that separated them. She fumbled to get a proper grip on it, hampered by the slickness of her hands.

Sarah's face was inexplicably calm, almost serenely cool, yet purposeful in that infinite instant as she waited for the perfect moment. Her fear and exhaustion had all evaporated and been replaced by steely determination and acceptance.

If this failed, it was all over. But it wouldn't fail. She wouldn't fail herself, Kyle, her son and the world. She would finish off the terminator, survive, heal, give birth to and raise John Connor. And when Judgement Day came, she and John would be ready for it.

The Terminator's hand reached out for her throat to crush the life out of her and end its' long mission.

Sarah locked eyes with its' demonic red ones. Her voice full of steel and ice as she gasped out, "You're...terminated...fucker!"

With her last words, she slammed the button down with everything in her.

She had drawn the terminator into the hydraulic press, aided by memories of a long-ago school field trip, and it was now trapped. The button activated the stamping plate, making it slam down on the machine.

Tons of mechanical pressure flattened the Terminator's head and body like it was tin-foil in a microwave. The press screamed, jamming solid. Lightning snapped out in one brief blaze, leaping to surrounding machinery, arcing to Sarah's wristwatch, making her cry out in pain at the jolt of electricity.

Meanwhile, all the Terminator's energy was being released in one second. Its' struggles finally ceased, and the red glow in its' eyes dimmed and went out.

Sarah shuddered, exhaling shakily at her close call. The steel fingers were frozen an inch from her throat. She could only stare straight ahead as the water continued to run over her.

In the distance, she could hear sirens screaming as they approached the industrial estate, and her head collapsed back against the wall behind her, finally succumbing to the beckoning realm of unconsciousness.

* * *

_**Mexico: November 7th, 1984**_

Sarah held up a small tape recorder to her mouth, chewing her lip as she debated what to say next. Her other hand rested on her stomach, which was swollen with her six-month pregnancy. A small handgun lay in her lap, and there was a large German Shepherd, trained in fighting, seated in the backseat.

Most importantly, Kyle was in the driver's seat, turning towards the gas station they were heading for. Feeling her gaze on him, he flashed her a quick smile before returning his attention to the road.

He was so protective of her, even unwilling to take his eyes off the abandoned road for more than a moment in case he lost control of the jeep. In most circumstances, she would've been pissed at the implications.

But Kyle wasn't protective of her because he didn't think she could handle herself. He was protective because he loved her, and their unborn son, and he didn't want to risk either of them. As such, instead of annoying her, it only made her smile fondly.

"I guess the hardest thing about all of this is trying to decide what to tell you and what not to," she said thoughtfully into the recorder. "What if, by telling you something, it affects how you react when the event comes? But what I don't tell you, and _that_ changes your reaction instead? God, a person could go insane thinking about all of this. I wish I understood it better. But I guess we have a while before you're old enough to understand any of this. We have time to figure everything out."

She paused the recorder as they pulled into the gas station.

"Hola, Señor, Señorita!" a weathered Mexican man in his early sixties called, coming up to them with a wide smile. "Puedo te ayudar?"

"Sí," Sarah nodded politely. She had the advantage of learning basic Spanish in high school, while Kyle could just barely order a water after three months of travelling through Mexico. As a result, Sarah took on the bulk of their communications. "Lleno el tanco, porfavor."

"Ah, sí, sí," he nodded cheerily before wandering off to do so.

"I'll go get us some more water and pay for the fuel," Kyle told her. "You should stay here," his gaze lingered protectively on her stomach.

Seeing as her ankles were swelling now, making walking or even just standing an exhaustingly painful effort, Sarah agreed, leaning over to kiss him quickly.

He smiled at her then hopped out of the jeep, quickly ducking into the shop. He grabbed a pair of two litre water bottles and some Pringles (Sarah's latest craving), then went up to the counter to stagger through a short conversation in his broken Spanish, managing to pay for everything without too much trouble.

When he returned to Sarah, he found her holding a photo and smiling amusedly.

"Kids these days," she said cheerfully to him, holding it out to him. "That boy over there just conned me outta four bucks for this."

He took it from her, his expression going slack as he took in the details of the photo.

"Kyle?" Sarah asked, alarmed by his reaction. "What's wrong?" She twisted her neck around as if she thought that a terminator was about to come storming up to them, one hand resting protectively on her stomach.

"This is my photo," he revealed. He elaborated at her confused expression. "The one that John gave me."

"Oh my god," she gasped, eyes widening. "Are you sure?"

He nodded, still-pale from the shock. "What were you thinking about?" he asked her. He'd always wondered what had caused the distant expression to be on her face.

"How relieved I am," she admitted. "That you survived. I was thinking how awful it would've been, if I was trying to do all of this alone, and how grateful I am that John's not gonna grow up without you."

Kyle swallowed, then leaned in to kiss her desperately. The boy who had taken the Polaroid yelled something in Spanish, causing them to separate.

"What'd he say?" Sarah asked the station worker, who was sorting out a problem with one of the two pumps.

"He said that there's a storm comin'," the man explained, shrugging.

The two Americans exchanged dark looks at that, settling back in the jeep as Kyle turned the engine back on.

"Oh, you have no idea," Sarah muttered quietly for the man to hear. She covered her stomach protectively and adjusted her sunglasses as Kyle drove off.

They had a lot of work to do, and not enough time to do it in.


End file.
